


What's Your Damage?

by Enterprisingly



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: (of both the sexy and unsexy varieties), Actor Ben Solo, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Background Relationships, Ben Solo Go To Therapy Challenge, Canon-Typical Violence, Comedy, Drama, Dungeon Master Poe Dameron, Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Ensemble Cast, F/F, F/M, Los Angeles Gothic, M/M, Original Character(s), Roleplay, Romance, Slow Burn, So Many Cameos, Social Media, Tabletop Gaming, Texting, also Medium Burn, artist rey, you'll see ;) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2019-12-30 16:30:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 53,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18319052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enterprisingly/pseuds/Enterprisingly
Summary: Rey joins Ben's Dungeons & Dragons group and their characters – Kira the Half Elf Cleric and Kylo the Tiefling Oathbreaker Paladin – start falling head over heels for each other. Which would be fine... if Ben and Rey could stop arguing long enough to enjoy the ride.But as their lives intertwine and the lines between fantasy and reality begin to blur, they discover that it’s all fun and games until someone actually falls in love.





	1. Just Roll With It

**Author's Note:**

> Notes:
> 
> 1\. Welcome to my latest nerdy Reylo AU! It’s something I’ve been dying to write since March 2018 and I’m really excited to take you all on this journey with me.
> 
> 2\. This story is centered around the popular roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons, which I have been playing for while! That being said, I’ve written this story to be accessible to players and non-players alike.
> 
> 3\. This story is a single romance that is half comedic high fantasy adventure and half modern day coming of age drama. As always I strive to keep my work lighthearted but this fic will touch on some complex and difficult topics such as: addiction, recreational drug/alcohol use, mental illness, sexism, and as usual, there’s a lot of swearing. The in-game fantasy segments will feature Star Wars canon-typical depictions of violence and the rating is reflective of both that and future sexual content.
> 
> 4\. We’re on track for 22 chapters. I will update every other Monday (possibly more frequently if my schedule allows). I have five chapters written now and a sixth in progress so we’re off to a good start.
> 
> 5\. I named everyone's D&D characters after their actors (with the exception of Rey and Ben) for ease of reading comprehension and I've simplified some of the rules/gameplay of D&D for the same reason. If anything is EXTREMELY confusing, let me know and I'll do my best to make it clearer in future chapters.  
> 
> 
> -*-
> 
>   
> All my love to my INCREDIBLE beta team: [cyborgharpy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyborgharpy), [VioletWilson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/violetwilson), and [LoveofEscapism](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveofEscapism) for helping me turn this fic into something readable and holding my hand while I panicked about everything. I would be lost without them.
> 
> Because you guys are amazing, I already have FAN ART for this which just BLOWS MY MIND! Please check out this art of Kylo by [Aionimica](https://twitter.com/aionimica/status/1112800097509806081) and give her some love!
> 
> Please don’t forget to tag me if you make something cool related to this story so I can share it in the next chapter!!!

The mighty paladin races across the field toward his waiting foe. His feet pound into the sandy ground, his dark steel plate armor glints in the light of the twin suns above. Beads of sweat drip down his crimson brow as his clawed hand tightens around the familiar, leather wrapped hilt of his longsword, Silencer.

This is it; the final push in a long and arduous battle that is just the latest in a series of such encounters. The exertion of fighting his way across the brutal desert, testing his strength against monsters and men alike, has left him weary. All he wants to do is find a comfortable place to sleep for a hundred years.

Kylo Ren – Oathbreaker, deserter of the Sith Empire, and former commander of the Knights of Ren – is on his last legs. There’s a wound burning in his side from where an assassin’s crossbow bolt had managed to slip between the plates of his armor to pierce his flesh. He can feel the poison from the barb coursing through his veins, and he knows that he and his party don’t have much more fight left in them.

The wizard, Dom is down for the count, unconscious and bleeding inside the shelter he had conjured for himself. Lo'an, the druid is caught in a rope trap. The bard, Adedayo is breathing raggedly – a bad sign for a caster who’s magic is based on speech and song.

The final party member – the rogue, Gwenna Silvertongue – is still relatively hale and hearty, but she’s not going to be much help if their final opponent – a particularly dexterous and resilient ogre – manages to get out of range of her knives.

“Kill him!” Lo'an cries, struggling to free herself from her confinement to no avail. “He’s gonna get away and tell everyone where we are! We won’t survive another fight like this!”

“Don’t worry, I’m gonna smash his fucking skull in before that happens,” Kylo snarls.

“You can certainly try!” the ogre taunts in the Common Tongue, brandishing his own jagged, iron blade with a sadistic cackle.

As Kylo draws even with the creature, he raises Silencer high above his head, preparing to bring it down on the head of his foe with a powerful overhand swing and –

* * *

In the den of Poe Dameron’s house, everyone holds their breath in anticipation.

Ben Solo shakes his fist before letting fly a black twenty-sided die, which lands in the wooden dice tray on the table before him.

It bounces, tips and finally comes to rest.

Ben stares at the die. Everyone else stares at Ben.

They’re an odd group; six adults in their mid-twenties to early-thirties, dressed for comfort over style, seated around a large, rectangular, walnut gaming table.

The outer rim of the table is higher than the center, featuring cubbies and drawers for dice and pencils, as well as places to prop open books and character sheets. The recessed center currently plays host to an intricately drawn map, covered in all manner of brightly painted mini figurines, representative of the party’s characters and their enemies.

At the far end sits Poe, with his perfect hair and dark eyes, holding court behind his piles of official Dungeons & Dragons books, heaps of dice, and the folding, four panel Dungeon Master’s screen that keeps everyone else at the table from spying on his notes.

To Poe’s right sits Adedayo, the bard, or as he is known in real life, Finn Gunner. He is a handsome, fit man, who looks pale with worry beneath his deep umber skin as he clings in terror to his wide-eyed girlfriend, Rose Tico. Rose, who plays the druid, Lo'an, has her hands clasped to her round face and is peering through her fingers as though she can hardly stand to watch.

On Poe’s other side sits his boyfriend, the weedy, ginger-haired, Armitage Hux; the somewhat reluctant player of the party’s wizard, Dom. He’s on his phone, likely checking Twitter – _again_ – in order to rub in just how low his investment in this whole game is. They all know that he’s really only playing because it makes Poe happy, but it still drives Ben up the wall.

To Hux’s left sits the tall, blonde Phasma Scyre, who is the only person – who is actually paying attention, that is – who also doesn’t look overly distressed by the events unfolding in their game. Her large, powerfully-built body is relaxed as she rests her elbows on the table, eyes scanning her character, Gwenna’s sheet in preparation for her own turn.

“What did you roll, Kylo?” Poe asks.

“Plus my strength?” Ben grinds out from between clenched teeth. “Ten.”

“Isn’t your strength bonus a nine?” Hux asks, trying to lean around Phasma’s massive frame to peer at Ben’s dice tray.

“Yes,” Ben admits sulkily.

“So that means…” Poe says, a grin stretching across his face.

“... I rolled a natural one,” Ben mutters.

“Critical fail!” Poe’s smile gets impossibly wider and Ben just _hates_ him right now. “You trip on a rock buried in the sand; your swing goes wide and you sprawl across the ground in front of the ogre. He laughs at you.”

 _Fucking Dungeons & Dragons_, Ben thinks, wondering how exactly he’d allowed himself to get dragged into this madness in the first place.

* * *

Ben is no stranger to chaos. Quite the opposite, in fact.

For most of his life, he had thrived on it. But that chaos had involved a lot more tabloid exposés and a lot less strangely shaped dice before Poe Dameron had conned him into playing _make believe with math_ on a weekly basis.

It’s a little jarring to realize that it’s already been seven months since the fateful day that Poe had first brought up the idea. It simultaneously feels like it happened yesterday and a million years ago.

Back then, he’d been relatively fresh off of the worst mess he’d _ever_ made. Or fresh out of his latest – and longest – stint in rehab, anyway. The explosion that had been building inside of him since he was very young had finally gone off, incinerating his entire life in the process. The wounds, both physical and emotional from the incident were still raw.

In the booming, empty silence that followed, he’d discovered that the funny thing about being a sad bastard who’d lost his career, the vast majority of his social circle, and his primary form of recreation all in one fell swoop was that it left said sad bastard with a great deal of empty hours.

Hours that were much harder to fill without the aid of his favorite chemical solutions to boredom.

But whatever.

The point is that back in July, when Poe had asked him to come have a drink – “at a _juice_ bar, Ben; I’m not trying to sabotage your sobriety” – and invited Ben to come play D&D with him, he didn’t really have much else going on.

This was not to say that he didn’t have reservations about the whole thing.

“Isn’t that the nerd game that everyone was afraid was gonna turn people into satanists when we were kids?” He asked, before taking a sip from his massive cup of green juice. He’d been trying for weeks to convince himself that the supposed health benefits of the bitter, chlorophyll-flavored beverage made up for the fact that it tasted like he was mowing grass with his teeth. It wasn’t working.

“A, don’t act like you’re _not_ a nerd, Mr. I-can-quote-Lord-of-the-Rings-by-heart, and B, that’s the one,” Poe replied easily. “I’m surprised the devil worship _isn’t_ a bonus for you. You’ve always liked that edgy shit. Didn’t you _literally_ declare yourself a Satanist once?”

“You know most of that was just talk, Poe; I was just trying to fuck up my shiny child actor ‘golden boy’ image as much as possible.”

“I mean, you definitely did that, at least,” the other man said lightly, which caused Ben’s eyebrows to shoot towards his hairline. Poe’s dark eyes glinted with mischief in his handsome, tanned face, “Nobody could mistake you for ‘Sweet Little Adam’ from _JJ Knows Best_. Not with that scar and all the ink, anyway.”

He gestured meaningfully from Ben’s heavily tattooed arms to the mostly-healed wound on his his face.

Strangely, Poe’s words hadn’t set him off. No one had spoken to Ben like that since… well, it had been a while.

In the aftermath of the _incident_ , his mother had been resignedly heartbroken. His father had just been resigned.

The tabloids treated him with a mixture of morbid curiosity and cruelty (‘ _Violence, Drugs, and Box Office Flops: Ben Solo Self Destructs’_ , _‘Inside the Lies of The Organa-Solo’s: Hollywood Royalty In Ruins’_ , _‘Ben Solo: from the Red Carpet to Rehab’_ ).

His fans – those who were left anyway, even though he hadn’t had so much as a cameo in anything since 2014 – were all irritatingly saccharine and supportive, filling all of his internet spaces with platitudes and empty encouragement in hopes that he might turn to one of them for… what? Emotional support? Sexual healing? Who could even begin to understand the mindset of the sort of fanatics who were still obsessing about a washed up actor five years after the end of his career.

His critics – the eternal cadre of sad adults who felt like he had ruined their childhoods – were angry that he hadn’t done them all a favor and just dropped dead already.

This was the first time that Ben felt like someone was actually trying to _joke_ with him about his breakdown. It wasn’t mean or ill spirited. It was just… friendly teasing. Like Poe was telling him he thought Ben was strong enough to take a few hits without breaking.

It was so _normal_. And it was a relief that Ben hadn’t even known he needed until that moment.

“So D&D… what exactly is it that you’re inviting me to play?” He asked after an awkward pause stretched between them for just a little too long.

“It’s a role playing game,” Poe said. “You and a group of other players create characters and play those characters in a story that your Dungeon Master – that would be me, in this case – comes up with for you. You fight monsters, cast spells, save the day. You know, the usual.”

“And who exactly would the other players be?” He asked, running the fingers of his free hand through his hair to shove it back from his face.

“Hux and Phas, obviously, because there’s nothing quite like getting the Wolf Pack back together,” Poe said.

Ben rolled his eyes.

“You can’t still refer to our childhood friends as ‘the Wolf Pack’ and expect me to take you seriously; we came up with that when we were _six_ ,” he said.

“Oh, you’ve never taken me seriously and I don’t expect you to start now. Besides, I’ve been missing the shit we used to get up to and I think it would be good for all of us to get together regularly again,” Poe said with a laugh, before continuing. “My buddy Finn is also playing. He’s a cool guy, blogs about indie films and goes to a lot of industry events, so he’ll be chill about you being… you know… _‘Ben Solo’_.”

Poe made air quotes with his fingers.

Ben scowled into his green juice.

“You sure he won’t just use this as a way to get the inside scoop or something?” He asked, sourly.

Poe shook his head.

“Nah man, he mostly writes about how history and politics shape media. He’s an academic, not a vulture.”

“Alright. That it?” Ben asked.

“Finn’s girlfriend, Rose, is also joining us,” Poe said. “I don’t know her _super_ well but I’ve met her a few times and she’s cool. I think she works for Legendary or Lionsgate or something? I can’t remember, but she’s industry too and she’s been around plenty of big name celebs without losing her shit.”

It didn’t matter that he wasn’t acting any more. That he was functionally a recluse and even if he wanted to pick any part of his old life back up, he wouldn’t even know where to begin. He could no more outrun the spectre of his fame than he could his own shadow.

Ben sighed.

At least with Poe in charge of the guest list, it was unlikely that any of these people would be _too_ bad. Two people who had known him back when he was in diapers and two film professionals who _probably_ wouldn’t sell pictures of him to TMZ. There were certainly worse options.

“So how does all of this even work?” Ben asked, steering his thoughts away from depressive episode trigger territory.

Poe grinned and said, “you say what action your character would like to take, then you roll dice and add your character’s corresponding skill bonus for that action to the roll to see how well it goes, and I build a story around the result.”

“So it’s like a video game… without the video part,” Ben replied, brow creasing slightly. “Is it just people sitting around a room playing pretend? Is it a board game?”

Poe chuckled and took a sip of his own juice before answering.

“Kind of? But also kind of not. I like to use maps and minifigs and stuff to make things more visual and easy to follow, but they’re not _technically_ necessary because most of the action is happening in the collective imagination of everyone at the table. Honestly, this is just structured improv. I think you’d be good at it. You’re a good actor, after all.”

Ben had balked at that.

“I’m not a fucking actor any more, Poe,” he snapped, too loudly for the quiet patio out front of the stupid, hipster juice shop, and a couple of people at their neighboring tables looked over in their direction. He was pretty sure that he saw one girl lifting her phone up in a way that she thought was subtle to snap a photo of him. Irritation bubbled up from his belly to sit hot in his chest. His grip tightened around his cup, squeezing the plastic a bit too hard and it made an alarming cracking sound.

“Okay,” said Poe, with a _look_ that only served to make Ben even more irritated.

“I’m _not_ ,” he said, turning his gaze to the traffic that flowed lazily by on the street to his right. “I’m done with that whole scene. It was more fucking trouble than it was worth. And if this is some sort of fucked up scheme to try and get me back in or whatever –”

“Man you are _still_ so full of yourself,” Poe said with a snort.

Ben’s gaze flicked back just in time to catch the tail end of Poe’s eye roll.

“Listen, this isn’t really about _you_ ,” said Poe, shrugging, “I like playing D&D. I’ve got a game with some cool people starting soon and we could use another player. Figured it might be nice to actually hang out with you again. You know, now that you’re sober enough to carry a conversation. And also that you might actually have some fun, which god knows you desperately need.”

Shame hit Ben like a bucket of water being overturned on his head. The sudden flush that colored his face burned hotter than the LA summer sun.

“… fuck,” he mumbled, looking down at the gray wood of the table before him. He was _trying_ to be better, if not with his knee-jerk reactions then at least with apologies, like his therapist had suggested. They still tasted strange on his tongue, the words alien in his mouth. “I didn’t mean… shit.”

Poe sighed and stood up, reaching out to clap Ben on the shoulder.

“I know, man,” he said in a tone that managed to be kind without straying into pity. “Listen, I gotta go pick Hux up from LAX – which is gonna take two thousand years because that asshole is getting in around rush hour and we’re all the way across town – but just think about it okay? It’s a weekly game, we’re gonna be playing every Saturday, and I’d love it if you gave it a shot.”

“I’ll think about it,” Ben said.

And he had.

He’d thought about it a lot.

He’d googled Dungeons & Dragons and watched a bunch of youtube videos, read wikipedia articles and forum posts and even listened to a couple podcasts. The conclusion that he came to was that it _did indeed_ seem like fun. Like a board game but better. Like a video game but with more freedom of choice.

It was also a game of swords and sorcery, and though he’d never have copped to it back when he was trying to be cool, Ben had _always_ secretly loved all things high fantasy. Which Poe knew, _of course_.

But there was one stumbling block that he could not get past. Even though he had spent over two decades as a professional actor, the idea of playing make believe for fun felt… childish. It felt like a step backwards.

Shouldn’t he be going out and trying to find something meaningful and worthwhile to do with his life now that he’s no longer burning out his brain on uppers, downers, and the contents of his medicine cabinet, he’d wondered. Shouldn’t he have been trying to anchor himself in reality, not seeking out fantasy worlds and escapism?

He brought this up in therapy the next time he went, because somehow the “to D&D or not to D&D” question had become a big enough deal that it ranked right up there with “I can’t stop wanting to drink myself blind every time I see my mom’s face on a fucking billboard and she’s on a _lot_ of billboards” and “I haven’t left my apartment other than to go to the gym and therapy in the last two weeks”.

“I think you should do it,” Dr. Holdo said, after Ben finally rambled himself into silence, half an hour into the session.

He blinked at his therapist, sure that he’d missed something crucial or misunderstood the Doctor’s meaning.

“What?”

“I think you should try playing,” She said. “There’s good research to suggest that role playing games can be beneficial therapeutic tools. Plus, you told me yourself; you’re not getting out of your house nearly enough.”

Ben’s mouth had opened and closed several times, trying – and failing – to come up with a good response before he finally gave up. Instead he simply sat there on the lumpy gray couch, staring in silence at the statuesque, middle aged woman, whose neatly curled mauve hair made her look a great deal more like an avant garde fashion model than a licensed psychiatric nurse.

“You really don’t think this is stupid?” He finally managed to choke out.

“Far from it,” Dr. Holdo replied “I think it could be transformative for you.”

“But… isn’t it a waste of time?” Ben protested weakly, feeling as though not making this last effort at least would be to betray his rational mind.

“Ben,” She said, dryly, “do you _want_ to play?”

After a second of hesitation, he’d nodded, still unable to quite admit it out loud.

“Well, then. You haven’t had fun while sober since you were fifteen. So right now, there is nothing _more_ worth your time than changing that,” she replied firmly.

And Ben hadn’t been able to come up with a good argument against that logic.

Which is why, six months later, Ben is sitting in Poe’s den-slash-tabletop-gamer’s-wet-dream room, getting laughed at by an ogre.

Well. Technically it’s Kylo who’s being ridiculed.

In this moment though, the irritation is evenly distributed between both player and character.

* * *

“That was embarrassing, Red!” Gwenna calls, darting across the battlefield with surprising grace to toss all three of her daggers into the back of their retreating foe, AKA the fucking brick shithouse ogre who Kylo had been unable to so much as touch with his _longsword_.

 _What a perfect metaphor for my whole life,_ he thinks, bitterly, _no matter how easy my goal should be to achieve, I always seem to fall short._

The ogre lets out a roar of pain, blood erupting in gouts from the wounds, but somehow manages to remain conscious enough to continue running.

From his position of the sandy ground, Kylo can see the bastard getting away and he just wants to scream in frustration. They’re so close to finally leaving the wasteland of the Jakku Desert behind them for good, so close to finally shaking the tail of Imperial goons who have dogged them every step of the way, so close to being out of magical energy, physical energy, and _blood_ in the case of Dom, who is passed out cold.

And this fucking ogre is going to get away and live to send a message back to his superiors.

“Shut the fuck up, Gwenna,” Kylo spits.

It is, of course, just as things are really beginning to look truly hopeless, that the tell-tale strum of Dayo’s lute echoes through the air.

“ _I was told that this was going to be a battle of wits, but it seems you’ve shown up unarmed!_ ”

As the bard belts out one of his classic, vicious one-liners, a curl of glowing, magenta-hued mist issues forth from his lips before streaking off across the field and slicing through the ogre.

There’s no blood, but as the mist connects, the creature lets out a wretched gurgle and drops dead on the spot, confirming once more, what Kylo has always thought: bards are fucking _weird_. And dangerous. Anyone who can literally talk you to death is worth keeping a careful eye on.

“Whoo! Now _that’s_ how it’s done!” Dayo cries, gleefully.

Kylo lays in the sand, trying to pretend that the relief of knowing that they’re not going to have to deal with the mess that would be the Empire finding them _tonight_ at least is enough to drown out his utter shame at how poorly he’d done during this fight.

The group that ambushed them had been twelve members strong and he’d killed exactly zero.

Even fucking _Dom_ – the coward who had conjured himself a panic shelter after taking a single hit – had actually brought down three of their adversaries on his own, before getting knocked out when a sorcerer had filled his shelter with a stinking cloud.

“Thanks for the assist on that last one,” Kylo can hear Lo'an saying over the _shink, shink, shink_ of sharp blades slicing through rope.

“Can’t let anything happen to you, sweet cheeks,” Gwenna replies, and their jovial flirting is just salt in the wound.

 _Glad to see that even a near death experience doesn’t cool those two off,_ he thinks sourly.

The druid giggles before setting to work casting a healing spell to revive their fallen wizard.

A shadow falls over Kylo, blocking out the sunlight.

“Hey, Kylo, fight’s over man. Your horns stuck in the sand or something?” Dayo asks.

“No, I’m laying here on purpose,” Kylo mutters, and he pays for his sarcasm when sand gets in his mouth. Spitting out the granules, he heaves his massive frame up onto hands and knees, long, red tail lashing in irritation behind him.

In this position Kylo is eye to eye with the bard, which tracks, seeing as how Dayo is a halfling and Kylo is large, even by teifling standards.

It doesn’t seem to bother Dayo much, that he’s so completely dwarfed by his party member, after all everything he lacks in height he more than makes up for with flair.

His skin is dark as midnight copper, smooth and unblemished even after months on the road. Intricate designs are shaved into the sides of his tightly coiled hair, the lines tattooed with a strange shimmering gold to make them stand out. He’s dressed flamboyantly in rich brocades and jewelry that is shiny enough to disguise that it is not necessarily of much value. He looks every inch a court entertainer and even after months of travel together, it still looks strange to see him standing amidst the dirt and gore of the battlefield.

Kylo sighs and climbs to his feet once more, shoving his long, black hair out of his face and back behind the thick, onyx horns that curl, ram-like, along the curve of his skull. He is well aware that his appearance is truly the stuff of nightmares, though he’s certain that the heavy dusting of sand all across his front is doing a bit to soften the effect. He wipes his face off with the back of his hand, returns Silencer to it’s sheath on his hip, and surveys the wreckage around them.

Gwenna is picking her way through the remains of their fallen foes, turning out pockets, belt-pouches, and rucksacks with a sort of pragmatic briskness that Kylo has come to associate with the rogue over the course of their travels.

As tall and broad as Kylo himself, Gwenna’s sage green skin and the hint of ivory tusks peeking out from between her lips should have made her equally frightening to behold. But through careful manipulation of her posture, attire, and the occasional judicious application of a glamour, she instead exudes an air of debonair charm that is utterly disarming to even the most prejudiced of folk.

Nonetheless, one would be a fool to mistake her image consciousness for frivolity. Gwenna’s long, white hair is braided neatly back so as to not get in her way mid-fight, and her leather armor is tailored perfectly to conceal all manner of deadly weapons and thieve’s tools.

Across the way from where Gwenna is looting, the tiny, olive-skinned Lo'an is leaning over the prone body of Dom. She, like Dayo, is a halfling, though the way her many layered dress of cotton and leather flutters in the wind like autumn leaves gives her the appearance of a tiny dryad. The crown of woven branches that perches atop the nest of curly, dark auburn hair only serves to enhance the effect.

Her face, while normally the very image of joy, is currently a comical study in frustration as she tears into Dom.

“I know you’re excited that you’ve can conjure a bomb shelter but it doesn’t help _anything_! It didn’t even help you!” She rants at him, waving her hands through the air for emphasis. “Like ‘ _Look at me, I’m Dom the shitty wizard, master_ coward _! I hid in a box and almost let my friends die because I passed out in a fart cloud and did nothing!_ ’”

Dom tries to interrupt, but Lo'an presses a tiny finger to his lips, effectively shushing him.

“No! Shut up! Next time you go down inside of a box you conjured for yourself, we’re just gonna leave you to rot! At least you’ll do some good for the ecosystem that way!”

Then Lo'an casts a Cure Wounds spell by poking Dom in the forehead, before turning on her heel and stomping off to join her half-orc paramour.

Dom for his part collapses back into the sand with a groan.

The wizard still looks a bit peaked from the nauseating effects of the stinking cloud, and the greenish tinge to his skin clashes terribly with his fierce copper hair. His fine blue robes are rumpled and covered in dirt and blood, and he looks so disheveled that it _almost_ convinces Kylo to feel a little sympathy – an impulse he quashes at the last second, seeing as how the wizard’s pain is entirely of his own making.

After a few minutes, Dom’s cat, a massive, orange Maine Coon named Millicent, slinks out from wherever she’s been hiding during the fight, walks over and curls up on his chest.

“Well, looks like he’s staying like that forever,” Dayo muses, glancing around Kylo’s massive frame to judge the wizard.

“Piss off,” Dom replies, flipping Dayo the bird, but making no move to get up.

“What is this? Fucking nap time? First Kylo falls asleep on the job and now you’re just laying there, wallowing in your misery,” Gwenna scolds.

Kylo for his part, sighs and turns away from the battlefield to look around at the rest of the scenery. The battle had taken place in the center of a small desert outpost, ten ancient and weather-beaten buildings around a well. They’d been ambushed as soon as they set foot here and hadn’t had the chance to explore properly.

That the party has made it this far is a relief; it means that they’re only another day or so’s travel to the border between the Jakku Desert and the forest kingdom of Midrim, one step closer to their destination: the hidden city of Takodana. It’s pretty clear from the state of the building and the sheer lack of any sort of onlookers in the street that if anyone _is_ here, they’re trying hard not to catch the eye of the violent newcomers.

One of the buildings, near the center catches his eye. Where all the other structures in the outpost are of a squat, ramshackle wooden construction, this one is larger, with a pointed roof and walls of pale yellow sandstone. The ancient wooden door is wedged open, partially buried in the sand like everything else in the outpost.

Kylo takes a step towards it and –

* * *

“Roll me a perception check,” Poe says.

“Should have known we weren’t done getting our asses handed to us,” Ben says dryly as he searches through his pile of dice and papers for the 20-sided die used for all skill checks.

“Just roll a perception check,” Poe says, giving Ben a _look_.

Ben sighs and rolls the D20.

“That’s a uh… seventeen,” he says, glancing back and forth between the die and his character sheet to make sure that he’s done his math right. He’s eternally forgetting which statistic gives him a bonus to what types of checks.

“No, wait, sixteen. I forgot that I have negative bonus on my wisdom stat, because apparently both Kylo and I are idiots,” he sighs, exasperated.

Poe nods. “Good enough, okay so when Kylo walks up to the building the first thing that he notices is that this is obviously some kind of place of worship.”

“Like a temple?” Finn asks, as he scribbles Poe’s words frantically in his spiral-bound notebook.

“Yeah. It’s better preserved than any of the other buildings around here and it looks like more money was spent on its construction in the first place. And a sixteen is pretty good, so I will say that it actually does remind you of something else you’ve seen before.” Poe shuffles around some papers behind his DM screen. “The building in front of you looks very similar in construction to the temple of Jedah that you saw in the village of Niima, way back at the beginning of your time in Jakku.”

Poe’s eyes flicker up to meet Ben’s across the table and he grins in a secret, conspiratorial way.

“Which is very interesting to _you_ , isn’t it, Kylo?”

Ben feels the hair raise on the back of his neck, which is pretty remarkable, given that _he_ – that is, Ben Solo – doesn’t really care that much about this fictional temple for a fictional god in a fictional world… but Kylo… he cares _a lot_.

“You were totally a Jedha paladin before you broke your oath, weren’t you!” Hux says, triumphantly.

Ben glowers at him. “Quit metagaming, asshole, you have no idea _what_ Kylo was before you met him. Besides, Dom is throwing a one man pity party, right now. He doesn’t even know that Kylo is looking at the building in the first place.”

“Ugh, fine, keep your secrets,” Hux says rolling his eyes as he reaches out to take a drink of his Dr. Pepper.

“Hey, knock it off or you’re sleeping on the couch,” Poe reprimands his… whatever he and Hux are to each other. It’s whatever falls at the halfway point between married and mortal enemies. Then he turns back to Ben. “So what does Kylo want to do?”

“He wants to go take a closer look at the temple. See if there are any kind of… holy objects left behind? Books or scrolls maybe?” Ben says.

“Sure, as he enters the temple he gets a feeling like he’s being watched, but as quickly as he notices it, the feeling is gone.”

“Does he think it’s magic?” Ben asks, frowning.

“Make an arcana check,” Poe tells him.

Ben rolls then scowls. “Five; he’s got no idea.”

“Not a clue. He might even be imagining things. If you want to look around go ahead and give me an investigation roll,” Poe says, then he turns to the rest of the group. “Anyone else want to look around?”

“I was gonna offer to assist but it looks like you’ve got this covered. And honestly, I’m a little freaked out by how dead this place is so I don’t think Lo'an would actually want to explore that much,” says Rose.

“I’m searching the corpses,” Phasma says, looking smug, “and I already rolled an investigation check. I got a 24 with my bonus.”

“You find 53 gold and 14 silver pieces scattered throughout the bodies,” Poe pauses and glances down at his notes again, “and one of the uh… let’s see… one of the fallen bugbears is wearing a really nice pairs of boots.”

Everyone at the table pauses to look up at Poe in bemusement.

“Do bugbears traditionally wear shoes?” Finn asks.

“Well, they’re seven foot tall furry monsters with feet like a grizzly bear, so not typically, no,” says Poe with a laugh.

“Can I make a… _‘is this shit fucked up check’_?” Finn shoots back, scratching his head.

That gets a few snickers around the table and another bark of laughter from Poe.

“Make an insight check. Ben, how’d Kylo do in the temple?”

Ben checks his character sheet, making sure that he’s added his investigation bonus correctly again.

He’s really and truly just rolling like shit tonight. He’s not really a superstitious kind of guy, but if he were, he might suspect that he was cursed.

“I got a thirteen,” he says with a sigh, “so I investigate the temple. Do I discover anything other than the fact that it’s a temple?”

Poe smirks.

“Not really, no. You maybe find like… an ancient crumbled statuette or something, but time and the desert have just worn it away to nothing. Other than that the room is mostly just flooded with sand, leaving only the corners and edges of pews and an alter still visible.”

“Empty bottles of communion wine that have long since been drunk,” Rose interjects with a sad sigh, making Finn snicker.

Ben leans back in his chair. “Alright, well I think Kylo will leave the temple and go back to rejoin his party. We should probably get moving, anyway, unless we’re planning on camping here tonight.”

“Okay, as you leave the temple you notice that there’s a symbol carved on the door and I’m not even gonna make you roll for this one because it’s huge.” Poe pauses and his voice shifts from the jovial joking to the serious, captivating tone that makes his stories come alive.

“Carved into the door of the temple, four feet in diameter, is the holy symbol of Jedha, but not like you’ve ever seen it before. The phoenix wings that wrap around the outer edge are the same as always, but in the center, instead of the sun shining from the middle of a single sword, you see a pair of twin blades thrusting up towards a pair of blazing suns.”

He holds out a piece of paper across the table and Ben leans forwards to take it, excitement flickering in his veins as he takes hold of the drawing that Poe has presented him with.

“You get the feeling,” Poe continues, “that this is something very, _very_ old.”

“He was _totally_ a paladin of Jedha!” Hux stage whispers, totally ruining the moment and eliciting groans from around the table.

Ben, for once, is too busy thinking about what this symbol could possibly mean for Kylo to even care that Hux is spilling the beans of his character’s secrets at the table.

“So once Kylo rejoins the party what do you guys do?” Poe asks, once he’s given Hux the sort of look that does _not_ bode well for the survival of Dom and scribbled something pointedly on his notepad behind the DM screen.

“Well, I rolled a two on my _‘is something fucked up about this shoe wearing bugbear’_ check so I guess I think this is totally normal. Now I’m just tuning my lute,” Finn says.

“Is that what they’re calling it these days?” Phasma asks, waggling her eyebrows at Finn, who flushes.

“I make Dom identify the boots,” says Rose, who’s trying to suppress her laughter at Phasma’s innuendo.

“Cool, for the sake of time let’s say that you guys take a short rest here and Dom can do that while you’re chilling out. Don’t forget that since you leveled up last session you all have extra hit dice that you can spend to get you hit points back if you lost any in the fight,” Poe says, as he rustles around his papers.

“I guess I cast identify,” Hux says, “though I do it while still laying on the ground.”

“Of course,” Rose says, seriously, “I would expect nothing less from our favorite shitty wizard. I think Lo'an like squats down and stares really intently at Dom the whole time though. She’s still judging him.”

Ben snorts at the mental image of tiny Lo'an giving the stodgy, scuffed up Dom the stink eye for laying on the ground like a big baby.

“Congratulations,” Poe says, handing a card with an item description on it to Rose, “you’ve found Boots of Spider Climbing.”

“Aw, dang, I was hoping for Boots of Haste. I don’t really need these since I can just turn _into_ a spider,” Rose says looking around the table, “anyone else want em?”

“Oh we _all_ know who needs these,” Finn says, “Phas, how do you feel about going full Spider Gwen?”

Phasma, who already has her hands out in the universal gesture for “gimme” takes the boot card.

“I’m gonna break into so many tall buildings,” she says with a happy sigh, sliding the card into her character binder.

“Okay, so eventually I think Dom gets up, like only after Millicent has stopped sitting on him, of course, and casts prestidigitation on himself to clean his shit up. So he’s back to looking like his usual self,” Hux says. “Then he comes over to the group and is like ‘so what’s next’.”

“Kylo shoulder checks him as he walks by and says –”

* * *

“We should head out while there’s still daylight.” Kylo narrows his eyes, shading them with his hand as he scans the horizon. “We won’t be able to make it all the way to Midrim tonight but we shouldn’t stay here. This is our last known location and we can’t take it for granted that the information didn’t get back to the Empire somehow.”

Dayo, who is seated on the edge of the well, checking the tuning of his lute, nods. “I agree. The longer we’re in this gods forsaken desert the more enemies we seem to make.”

Gwenna frowns, crossing her arms.

“It’s strange, you know,” she says, pensively, “the bounty hunters coming after us for the Niima jailbreak make sense, even if it is a _little_ surprising that they care enough to keep chasing a bunch of random people this far from the place where we actually committed the crime. For _two_ whole _months_ , I might add. The smuggler gangs make sense too because we’re moving through their territory with bounty hunters on our heels. But these Imperial Assassin teams… they don’t normally go after common criminals and it’s almost like they can’t _stop_ coming after us.”

Awkward silence falls over the group as they take in Gwenna’s words and despite the heat of the desert, cold sweat prickles at Kylo’s spine.

He knows very well why they’re being tracked by the Empire, not that he can disclose this information without his party turning on him and doing the assassin’s job for them.

One does not simply walk away from a position in the Sith Emperor’s elite guard. The only saving grace about all of this is that as a Knight of Ren, he had worn a helmet at all times and his name had not been widely circulated outside of the upper ranks. Kylo can count the number of people who could identify his true face on one hand. Nonetheless, his massive size and demon-touched tiefling nature both made him stand out in a crowd.

He’d been doing a pretty good job of staying out of sight though, and he’d honestly thought that he'd found a place where he could disappear for good in Niima, but then of course, he’d been in the wrong tavern at the wrong time and gotten himself arrested along with everyone else when a bar brawl had broken out.

And apparently the description of him on his jailbreak bounty notice had been good enough to clue the Imperial Assassins in to exactly where to find him.

“Does anyone have anything they’d like to share with the class?” Dom asks, and Kylo does not miss the way the wizard’s blue eyes linger on him just a second longer than they do on anyone else.

“Well we _have_ been wrecking their operation all across Jakku ever since we escaped… but my guess is that they’re more concerned about the stuff we overheard in the Niima jail,” Lo'an pipes up, tapping a finger against one of her round cheeks. “They were talking about shipping us off to some sort of secret Imperial labor camp, after all. Maybe they don’t want that knowledge getting around?”

“That would make sense,” Dayo agrees, slinging his lute over his shoulder and standing up. “Though once you’ve ripped a portal to the Nine Hells open in the heart of your capital and fucked up the balance between the planes, it seems a little silly to worry about what kind of PR scandal a prison labor camp might cause.”

“I think whatever we nearly avoided by breaking out of that jail is a lot bigger than we knew at the time,” Kylo says, not looking at Dom. “And I have a nasty feeling that this ‘labor camp’ and the portal are connected. Because Dayo is right; if it was just a normal labor camp why keep it a secret? Magic like the kind that it takes to open a portal like that requires blood and a lot of it. If I had to guess what was going on at this ‘labor camp’ that would be it.”

Wind blows through the outpost, making old wood creak and sending grit flying into their faces.

Gwenna pulls her scarf up to cover her lower face and sighs.

“I think you’re right,” she says, “and I think the weird letters we found in the Kanjiklub base support that theory too. But most importantly I think we need to get moving. This desert is nothing but trouble.”

“Agreed,” says Dayo. “If we’re caught up in some bigger fight with the Empire then we can’t do it on our own. We need allies. And we ain’t gonna find them in this hell hole. I think our original plan still stands: get to Midrim, track down Takodana, and hopefully find some people who have a better idea of what’s going on than we do.”

“Let’s be honest,” Lo’an says, “we’ve been in that fight since we left Niima. We might as well just make it official now.”

“So we’re ‘The Resistance’ now, huh?” Dayo says.

“I guess we are,” Kylo replies.

They stand in silence for a while, lost in their own thoughts, until Gwenna nods one, claps her hands, and turns on her heel, beginning to walk towards the northern end of the outpost.

“Well?” she calls back, over her shoulder, “you lot coming?”

One after the other, the party joins Gwenna, following the road to the north and whatever waits for them in Midrim.

Kylo casts one last glance at the Jedha temple, bitter longing and sweet betrayal warring silently within him, before turning his gaze from the past to the future and trailing after his party.

* * *

“Do we finally have a group name?” Finn asks, excitedly.

“I think we just might,” Phasma replies.

Poe grins at them.

“Congratulations; it took you six months, but you finally did it.”

Ben rolls his eyes.

“You’re the one who told us we couldn’t spend our whole session trying to decide what to call ourselves, so actually it’s your fault it took this long in the first place,” he says, with a scowl at Poe.

“Ooh, taunting the DM! Very smart,” Rose says with a laugh.

“I’ll remember this Ben,” Poe says, flipping his notes around behind his DM screen. “But for now, for the sake of brevity, let’s just say that you guys travel for the rest of the day uninterrupted. I’m not even gonna make you roll survival checks or anything for this, you’ve been in the desert for long enough to know how to navigate with the help of both of the suns overhead.”

“Oh thank god, my delicate constitution can’t take another fight tonight,” says Finn, scrubbing his hands over his face.

“Delicate constitution my ass,” Rose mutters, rolling her eyes.

“We’re level eight, I don’t understand how ogres and bugbears keep kicking our asses,” Finn continues, pointedly ignoring her.

“To be fair, bugbears always suck and Poe is throwing beefy ogres at us,” Phasma says.

“Maybe they’ve been juicing,” says Hux.

“Yeah, like maybe there’s a thriving ogre steroid market in Jakku? Maybe we should investigate that instead of fighting the evil empire,” Rose says, grinning.

“Oh my god, what if we stopped killing them and started trying to set them on a better path? We could be like Intervention: Corellia Edition!” Finn says.

“I think Poe’s gonna change his mind about letting us have a nice quiet night if we don’t stop fucking around,” Ben says, though he can’t help the little smirk that’s curling across his lips at the antics of his… well… his friends, if he’s being honest.

“Every line of bullshit is just another ten hit points to the next boss you fight,” Poe says lightly.

“Okay, okay, so we walk until it starts to get dark and then we make camp,” Hux says. “As soon as he’s lit the fire for the party with a snap of his fingers, Dom rolls himself into a blanket burrito and immediately goes to sleep. Millicent curls up on his head like one of those furry Russian hats.”

“Sounds good. You make camp in the shelter of two hills and while the ground here is still sandy, it’s no longer the dunes that you’ve been wading through; you’ve finally reached the scrubland on the outskirts of the Jakku Desert. In the distance, silhouetted by the setting of the larger sun, is a massive mountain range rising into the sky, meaning that you can see Midrim at long, _long_ last. Are you guys all gonna go to sleep or are you gonna do a rotating watch?” Poe asks.

“Oh, we’re taking watch shifts,” Finn says, giving Poe a _look_. Poe, for his part, just smiles in return and gives a little ‘worth a try’ shrug.

“Lo will take first watch,” Rose says, “maybe with Gwenna?”

“No,” says Ben, firmly, “Kylo will step in if this idea is suggested and remind everyone that the last time Lo'an and Gwenna took watch together, no one watched anything and you two had to fight a rampaging gnoll war band _naked_.”

“Oh but it was _so_ worth it,” Phasma says with a wolfish grin. “Gwen will take second watch then. With Dom since he doesn’t have dark vision and he’s useless on his own.”

“Dayo will join Lo'an on first watch then,” says Finn. “They’ll spend the whole time playing some kind of like… traditional halfling poker game to stay awake.”

“Great. And I’m assuming that Kylo will take third watch?” Poe asks Ben, who nods. “Okay, so as you all settle in for the night, let me get perception checks from Dayo and Lo'an.”

“Fifteen!” says Rose.

“Twelve,” Finn sighs. “Dayo is distracted by losing all his gold to Lo'an or something.”

Poe nods. “First watch passes in peace. Second watch?”

“I rolled an eighteen,” says Hux.

“Great, because I got a natural one,” Phasma gripes.

Hux grins. “Maybe Dom was talking her ear off about the benefits of using a focus over consumable components in spell casting and he just bored her to sleep.”

That gets a round of laughter from the table.

“Yeah, that tracks,” Poe says, “but luckily for you, your watch passes with no interruptions as well. Third watch?”

Ben selects a red D20, different from the black one he’s been rolling for the rest of the session, hoping that maybe he’ll have better luck with this one. He rolls the die and his eyebrows shoot up.

“Natural Twenty,” he says, shaking his head in disbelief. “Where was this during combat?”

Poe lets out a low whistle.

“Nice! So Kylo, you come and wake Gwenna up and send her and Dom off to their beds before taking up their post, keeping watch on the surroundings of the camp. It’s quiet in the desert at night, there’s not much but the rustle of wind through the scrub brush and the occasional buzz of an insect. But as you stare off into the darkness of the surrounding hills, your eyes catch a sudden flash, moonlight gleaming off of metal, moving in the distance.”

Ben’s breathe catches in his throat. The whole table is silent, listening to Poe with rapt attention as his words spin a world to life out of thin air in their minds’ eyes.

“Another flash, closer this time, and now, with your tiefling darkvision, you can see that there’s a shape in shadow, moving along with whatever is catching the light. It’s a smallish humanoid figure, though it’s hunched down so you can’t really make out many details. It’s darting from one bit of cover to another, hiding behind scrub brush and loose boulders. This goes on for a while until it stops abruptly about 100 feet away. It seems to have realized that you’ve caught sight of it and eventually you start to notice that it’s retreating back into the night, until it vanishes behind something and you can’t see it any more. Do you want to go investigate?”

Ben is about to send Kylo out to investigate, but he glances at his character sheet, noting his depleted spells and still not fully recovered hit points, and thinks the better of it.

“No,” he says, glumly, “I’m just going to draw Silencer and rest it across my knees, but I’ll stay put.”

Poe’s eyes lock on Ben’s. “Even though it seems to be leaving you alone, you can’t shake the feeling that there’s something – or someone – out in the darkness, watching you.”

Ben shivers.

“You stay awake until the sun comes up, and there are no more signs of the creature and as the dawn finally breaks, you begin to wonder if maybe you were dreaming. But as the rest of the camp wakes and begins their morning rituals, you glance back over to the place where you saw the figure the night before and your eyes land on a humanoid figure standing on the hill, overlooking your camp, but you blink and when your eyes open once more, they’re gone. And that’s where we’ll stop for tonight,” Poe says, grinning broadly as the table erupts into groans and protests.

“You _can’t_ stop there!” Finn cries.

“Oh, but letting you all stew on this all week is so fun,” Poe says, laughing. “Besides it’s almost midnight! Some of us need to sleep!”

“Uuuuuugh!” Rose says, tugging on her hair. “Who could sleep after that? I’m too amped! I’m never sleeping ever again!”

“Poe, you are _such_ a sadist, and that’s coming from _me_ ,” Phasma scolds, shaking her head as she stacks her Player’s Handbook and her binder neatly into her bag.

“Yep! And don’t you forget it,” Poe says, “Oh! Also, don’t forget that next week we’ve got a new player joining us.”

“Ugh, right. That,” Ben says, scowling. The buzzy high that always suffuses him after a session vanishes in an instant, dropping him back into cruel reality with the reminder that this space, which he has so very reluctantly come to think of as a refuge from the rest of his life, is about to be invaded by an unknown element.

“Ben,” Finn admonishes, frowning, “you agreed that she could join. If you didn’t want her to play, you should have said something when I asked three weeks ago.”

He scowls harder.

“I said it was fine for her to join and it is. You all seem to think this girl hung the moon and want her to play with you and I’m not gonna be the one to stop this from happening,” he says, and there's a little more bite to his words than he really intended. “There’s no problem, everything’s fine here.”

Everyone gives him matching looks of disbelief and judgement, so Ben forces his face into neutrality.

 _Thanks two decades of acting for giving me_ something _useful,_ he thinks.

“It’s _fine_ ,” Ben insists once more, as he begins packing away his own books and dice. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to scare your friend off.”

Poe gives him a long suffering look but doesn’t say anything else.

“Don’t worry, Ben,” Rose says, “Rey’s cool. You’re going to love her.”

Ben _sincerely_ doubts that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming up next time: Rey joins the party and Ben handles it....... poorly.
> 
> Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated and encourage me to write faster!
> 
> If you’d like to support my work (or just want to yell at me about this story), you can do so on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/commandercait), [CuriousCat](https://curiouscat.me/commandercait), or [Tumblr](http://commandercait.tumblr.com) (even though I’m really not using it much since they’ve decided to set their whole platform on fire).


	2. Join the Party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOU GUYS!!!! The response to this story has been AMAZING! I don’t even know what I did to deserve the love and support you’ve given me but I will keep trying with everything I have to earn it with every new chapter.
> 
> I’ll be posting character sheets for everyone’s D&D characters and playlists for this fic on my twitter over the course of the next week so keep an eye out for those!
> 
> All my love to my INCREDIBLE beta team: [cyborgharpy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyborgharpy), [VioletWilson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/violetwilson), and [LoveofEscapism](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveofEscapism) for helping me turn this fic into something readable and holding my hand while I panicked about everything. They seriously do so much and I love them with ALL MY HEART. (Also I got to hug Violet when she came to LA and it was great.)
> 
> Please don’t forget to tag me if you make something cool related to this story so I can share it in the next chapter!!!

Rey has known Finn since she was ten, and Finn’s girlfriend, Rose, since she was fifteen, and she trusts them implicitly. Which is why she’s standing outside their friend Poe Dameron’s house, preparing to spend the next six hours (at least) playing Dungeons & Dragons with a bunch of people she hardly knows, even though she’s an introvert and the idea of _that_ much social interaction in one go would normally make her want to bolt for the nearest emergency exit.

Poe’s house is situated in the upscale Los Angeles suburb of Burbank and the mid-century modern dwelling is only _just_ charming enough to avoid falling into total banality.

Nervously, Rey chews on her lower lip as she approaches the front door.

She’d met almost everyone in the group at Finn and Rose’s Christmas party a few weeks prior, so it’s not like she’s worried about making a bad first impression, but she’s always anxious in social situations around people she doesn’t know well and she _definitely_ feels a little nervous about the game they’re going to be playing.

No one had ever warned her that D&D involved so many… numbers. And so many _things_ to keep track of. Like abilities, and spells, and how many of her daily spell slots she uses up.

It’s just a lot.

And while Rey has played a few tabletop roleplaying games before, her tumultuous childhood hadn’t afforded her that many opportunities to play make believe with other children and it’s not like she’s ever taken an improv class as an adult.

So, yeah; she’s definitely a little worried about making an ass of herself.

Mostly, though, she’s just hoping she doesn’t make everyone regret extending her this invite.

This is the first opportunity she’s really had to actually make _new friends_ since she moved out here a little over a year ago and she’s really, _really_ desperate to have anything in her life other than her work.

Which she loves.

How could she not, when she’s finally living her dream of being a full-time artist? Sure, she doesn’t have health insurance and it doesn’t exactly pay well. She still eats an _awful_ lot of instant ramen and her rent is occasionally more than a couple days late, but people are starting to take notice of her work.

After years of just scraping by, she’s finally on the path to building a real career for herself if she can just keep her momentum going.

Her sculptures and signs, made from neon lights and salvaged metal, are finally gaining attention from the art world and the general public alike. She’s building an actual social media audience and, more importantly, starting to attract clients with _real_  budgets.

The only problem with being a self employed artist is that she spends most of her days alone in her workshop. She’s mostly okay with the solitude; she’s been mostly alone for her whole life, so at least it’s not unfamiliar.

But when she looks at her calendar and realizes that it’s been a month since she last saw Finn and Rose for dinner and that the only words she’s exchanged with another living being in the interim are “have a nice day” at the supermarket, it makes her feel so isolated that she doesn’t know what to do.

Even introverts can get lonely, as it turns out.

Having a regular social engagement… seeing other human beings and talking about things other than traffic and the weather… that would be nice too.

She can see her pale face reflected back in the sidelight windows beside the door, and she nervously smooths down her brown hair, before ringing the doorbell. A bright, tinkling charm echoes through the interior of the building, followed by the sound of a small dog barking, and running footsteps, then the door is thrown open and her best friend Finn is wrapping her in a tremendous bear hug.

“You made it!” he says, grinning as he pulls away and begins leading her inside.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Rey replies with a matching smile, following him.

Poe’s orange-and-white corgi has come to greet her as well, and he bounces around her ankles barking until she bends down to pet him.

“Who’s the wee beastie?” she asks, ruffling his soft fur through her fingers as the dog’s eyes droop closed and his pink tongue lolls out of his mouth in contentment.

“That’s BB,” Finn tells her, “he’s spoiled rotten.”

Rey laughs and gives the dog a final scratch before standing up once more.

“Where is everyone?” she asks, peering around Poe’s home, with its cream walls and tasteful dark wood furniture. There are a host of classic movie posters and scripts framed and hung on his walls.

She even spies a couple of Emmy awards tucked away on a shelf and her eyebrows raise.

 _I knew Poe was a screenwriter but I didn’t know he was such a big deal,_ she muses.

“Oh, they’re all in the den,” Finn says, “except Ben, who’s not here yet.”

“He’s the one I haven’t met yet, right? The actor or whatever?” Rey asks as they round the corner of the living room and walk into Poe’s impressively stocked game room to find Poe, Rose, and Phasma already sitting around the table, talking and getting their stations set up.

“Even the newbie can manage to show up on time, I don’t know why it’s impossible for Ben to actually get here,” gripes Hux, jabbing his thumb in Rey’s direction as he enters the room from the opposite doorway that leads into the kitchen. “He keeps blaming traffic but it’s fucking LA; there’s always traffic and he should know to leave earlier by now.”

The red-headed man’s commentary goes unacknowledged by the other occupants of the room and Rey suspects that this is a regular enough occurrence that it has become part of the background noise.

She knows Hux is an art director at a boutique animation company – they’d initially bonded a little over their shared passion for art and British ancestry at the Christmas party, though their subsequent argument about what constituted as modern art had definitely soured her opinion of him somewhat.

“Fair warning about Ben,” Phasma says, looking up from sorting her dice into neat, color-coordinated piles, “he can be a bit of an ass at first, but once he warms up to you he’s actually pretty funny. Don’t get into an argument about rules with him though or Poe will make you guys take it outside because Ben can argue for _hours_. Hi again, by the way.”

Phasma, for her part, is a hot-shot indie film director of photoraphy, with a slew of awards and nominations to her name. Though looking at her now, with her side-shaved, platinum hair and slightly faded muscle tank that reads _“I Can Bench You”_ , it’s hard to picture her working anywhere other than a gym.

“Hey,” Rey responds, making a mental note to just try to keep her interactions with Ben as minimal as possible until she’s got him figured out.

“Rey! Welcome to the room where the Magic Missiles happen,” Poe says. “Grab a drink and take a seat!”

Rey obliges, selecting a can of ginger ale and sliding into one of the two empty chairs on the opposite end of the table from Poe, to Finn’s left. She notes, a little curiously, that there isn’t so much as a single alcoholic beverage in the mini fridge, which feels strange, given that when she’d met Poe, he had _definitely_ been enjoying his craft beer (and telling everyone around him how good it was).

“What class did you end up choosing?” Rose asks as Rey pulls out her character sheet, Players Handbook, and notepad.

“Life Domain Cleric,” she replies, “Poe said you guys could really use some help with healing.”

“Poe,” Phasma says, scowling down the table at the Dungeon Master, “did you really make her play a healer as her first character?”

Poe raises his hands in self-defence.

“Whoa, not at all! I told her we could use some help with that to balance out the party, but she had _full_ reign to play whatever she wanted,” he says. “Come on, Phas, you know I’m better than that.”

Phasma gives him a skeptical look, before turning to look back at Rey.

“Well, I can’t say that it won’t be nice to have someone who can actually cast healing spells that do _anything_ but remember that your real job is to play this game the way _you_ want to. You’re not just here to babysit us.”

“Yeah, speak for yourself,” Hux says dryly, “my wizard has four hit points and no common sense. I’m pretty sure you’re gonna be reviving Dom on an hourly basis.”

“Well if he didn’t do such stupid shit all the time –” Rose retorts and the rest of the table jumps in to give Hux hell.

A lot of the chatter seems to be inside jokes that Rey doesn’t get yet, so she busies herself setting out her newly purchased yellow and white sparkly dice.

Over the noise of the friendly squabble, Rey hears BB barking again followed by the sounds of the front door opening and closing and the tumbler turning in the lock.

“Alright, alright, wrap it up guys,” Poe says, “Ben’s here and that means it’s time to get this show on the road.”

“Sorry I’m late, traffic on the 101 was shit,” says a voice that is so deep and resonant that it hits Rey like a freight train and practically _ripples_ through her, making her stomach swoop.

She hadn’t really known what to expect from the mysterious Ben, but a voice that seems to have crawled out of her wildest fantasies was _not_ it.

Cautiously, Rey turns in her seat to get a look at the newcomer.

 _I didn’t even know they_ made _people that big,_ is the first thought that crawls across her brain before it kind of… errors out and the only thing she can think is, _holy shit._

Because Ben is _gorgeous_. Like, so gorgeous that Rey is suddenly having thoughts about him that are completely inappropriate for their setting and are _decidedly_ uncomfortable to be having around her friends.

Thoughts the likes of which she hasn’t had in a very, _very_ long time.

He’s tall – _well_ over six feet – and built like a Mack Truck. He’s wearing black jeans with artfully ripped holes in the knees, the sort of trainers that are more for aesthetics vs actual athletics, and a faded gray Metallica t-shirt. There’s a backpack slung over one of his shoulders and he’s holding a black leather jacket in his left hand. His bare arms are a kaleidoscope of tattoos, most of them blackwork, but Rey spies pops of ruby red here and there. There are so many that it’s hard for her to really pick out any of the designs in particular, save for the image of an anatomical heart bisected by a dagger on the back of his left hand.

There’s so much of him to look at that it takes Rey perhaps a second too long to actually look at his face. There’s something _vaguely_ familiar about him, like maybe she’s met him before.

 _Except, I’d_ definitely _have remembered that meeting,_ she thinks.

Ben is handsome, but in a way that is kind of confusing because he really _shouldn’t_ be. His nose is too long, his lips too full, eyes too deep-set beneath brows that are too thick, black hair that’s just a bit too long and would probably look sloppy on anyone else.

Not to mention the fact that there’s a _wicked_ scar that divides his face from the left side of his forehead to the right corner of his jaw. It’s pale pink and a little shiny, indicating that while it’s fully healed, it can’t have happened too terribly long ago.

She realizes that she’s been staring without saying _anything_ for longer than is at all appropriate, when her eyes finally lock with his and she realizes that he’s scowling.

“Um, hi,” Rey says nervously, in what she hopes isn’t too squeaky a voice.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, with a tone that’s definitely a _bit_ too sharp, even in response to her staring, “stare all you fucking want. Yes, I’m _me_ , no I won’t sign your shit.”

Rey pulls a face, all thoughts of how attractive Ben is flying straight out the nearest window in the wake of his utter rudeness.

“ _Excuse_ me?” she asks, affronted.

“Ah, Rey, this is Ben,” Poe says from the other end of the table, though Rey doesn’t bother turning around to look at him. She’s too busy glaring at Ben.

“ _Why_ on earth would I want _you_ to sign _anything_?” she fires back, glaring.

Now it’s Ben’s turn to look confused and he narrows his eyes at her.

“Don’t you know who I am?” He asks, slowly, as if he’s trying to puzzle something out.

Rey’s glare intensifies.

“I have no _bloody_ idea _who_ you are, but I have a pretty good idea of _what_ you are: kind of a prick,” she says, lip curling with disdain.

There’s a collective intake of breath from the people around the table and then Hux bursts into laughter.

“Oh this, _this_ is rich!” he gasps, tears of mirth welling in his eyes.

Ben looks utterly perplexed.

“Rey,” Finn says, in a voice that is carefully neutral, but she has known him long enough to tell that he’s doing everything possible to avoid joining Hux in total hysterics, “he’s Ben _Solo_. You know. The uh… the _actor_ , Ben Solo.”

And then it clicks and _everything_ makes sense.

“Oh,” she says as the pieces begin to click together. “I see.”

Rey knows who Ben Solo is, of course, because he’s a celebrity whose name had once been plastered all over the tabloids, and twitter, and clickbait news articles. Though the heyday of his overwhelming fame has come and gone, she would have to have been living under a rock in order to not have any idea who he is.

That is not to say that she knows anything _else_ about him, though. The show he’d starred in as a kid had aired a decade too early and she’s having a hard time lining up the man in front of her with the guy who had played the one-dimensional villain in Son of Darkness, the shitty blockbuster action franchise she had intentionally avoided seeing.

Unsure of what to do next, Rey simply closes her mouth and waits for _anyone_ else to rescue them all from this colossal disaster.

Ben, for his part, seems to be frozen in place and Rey wonders if he _ever_ interacts with people who don’t know who he is _instantly_.

“I–” she starts just as Ben says, “So–”

The room is beginning to feel hot and Rey is positive that everyone is staring at the two of them hard enough to drill holes through their flesh.

“Well, that could have gone better,” Poe says with a sigh. “Sorry, Rey; I didn’t want to tell you, because I figured you’d know who who he was and I didn’t want that to color your impression of him. And sorry, Ben, I guess I should have warned her first.”

Ben nods stiffly, forcibly shifting his gaze away from Rey to stare at Poe.

“It’s… fine,” he says in a voice that indicates that it's clearly _not_.

He walks forwards as if on autopilot, slings his black backpack off of his shoulder, and drops into the only remaining open seat, which is, _of course_ , the one directly to Rey’s right, without looking at her.

There is a gap between them of a few inches, but they’re still close enough that she can feel the heat radiating off of him. Ben smells like pine and leather and bergamot; comforting things of the earth that are a little incongruous with the way that he dresses. And a _lot_ incongruous with his acidic personality.

“Okay…” Poe says, then blows out a breath and clears his throat. “Right, well, now that we’re all here, we should get started. Everyone have a pencil and a drink? Has everybody peed?”

There’s some general fuss and muttering as Rose and Hux get up to use the bathroom and Poe passes Phasma an unopened can of Sprite.

Rey can feel the tension radiating off of Ben, so even though she’s pretty sure that whatever happened wasn’t _that_ bad and _also_ wasn’t entirely her fault, she decides to be the bigger person here. After all, she _is_ the newcomer and he _was_ here before her.

“Sorry,” she says, turning to look up at him, “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

Ben blows a breath out through his nose and shifts his jaw around, he looks in her direction but doesn’t quite meet her eyes.

“It’s fine,” he says, stiffly. “Sorry I was… rude.”

The words have a short, clipped edge to them and Rey can feel their insincerity like pinpricks against her skin.

“It’s okay. It wasn’t _either_ one of our best moments. Let’s start over,” she suggests, forcing herself to conjure up a friendly smile. She holds her hand out for him to shake. “I’m Rey, nice to meet you.”

He stares at her hand for a long moment, then takes it in his own and gives it a single, abrupt shake, before dropping it like she’d burned him. Rey _doesn’t_ let herself think about how large and warm his hand is, how it had dwarfed hers completely and sent goosebumps shooting up her arm.

This is _not_ the guy she wants to be fantasizing about; he might be so very much her type that it’s a little ridiculous, but he’s also _very_ clearly _not_ into her _at all_.

“Okay,” Ben says awkwardly, and his face does something that might be an attempt at a smile, but turns out a whole lot more like a wince. He turns back to flipping through his Player’s Handbook and studiously ignoring her. Ben does not want her, and though he's paying lip-service to politeness, he is broadcasting his honest feelings very clearly.

She feels Finn tapping on her knee under the table, prompting her to look over to him.

He mouths the words ‘ _don’t worry about it_ ’ to her and gives her a little thumbs up.

Rey is _definitely_ worried about it.

Thankfully, Rose and Hux return to the table and Poe begins the session.

“So,” he says, “when last we left off, the party was breaking camp for the day and Kylo had just spotted a strange figure that seems to be watching them for the second time. What would you like to do?”

* * *

The half-elven cleric watches from behind the cover of a boulder as the party continues their trek north through the scrubland the next morning. From her position she can see them break their modest camp, smothering the ashes of the now burned-down fire with sand and dusting the area with loose branches to disguise the fact that anyone had slept there.

The group sets out with the rise of the first of the two suns chewing on dried jerky and trail rations as they go. It’s still cool at this time of the morning, the real heat of the day only setting in fully once both suns have climbed into the sky.

Once they’re far enough away that they won’t be able to see her, Kira wraps herself tighter in her ancient cloak of mirroring and follows after them. She keeps to the scrub brush and boulders, only darting into the open when she’s certain they are too distracted to notice even the slightest flicker of movement that might not be concealed by her cloak.

She knows that it is by the blessing of her god, Jedha, that she even has this object in the first place.

The former head priest of her temple, Father Lor San Tekka, who had owned it previously, told Kira that the cloak had been enchanted in the age before the collapse of the last arcane empire. Back in the days when the gods had been more lenient about letting casters bend the arcane weave to suit their needs in any way they wished.

When the priest had died he’d left the cloak to Kira with a note telling her that one day she would understand why Jedha wanted her to have it. She is certainly grateful for it now, even if the very fact that Father San Tekka had given it to her does make her feel very much like a pawn being moved about a chess board without any knowledge of the larger plans of the one whose hand is guiding her.

For example; Kira has been praying to Jedha for answers as to why she had been left in Niima ever since she had woken up as a very young child, on the temple steps with no memory, save her name. And while her god has offered comfort and guidance aplenty in the decade and a half since then, the only answer he’d ever provided to her most pressing question, was a single vision of the party she’s currently trailing after.

A vision she had received only one day before she’d seen them fighting their way through the Niima marketplace.

It’s more than a little maddening.

Not that she’s questioning the vast and ineffable wisdom of her god, of course. She would _never_ dare.

Kira just wishes that perhaps, Jedha felt a _teeny, tiny_ bit more inclined to bring her into the loop of his great cosmic scheming.

Even from a distance, she can tell that most of her quarry are in good spirits. The half-orc woman who she’s come to know as Gwenna from overheard snippets of conversation is giving both of the halflings a ride on her buff shoulders.

The wizard, Dom and the druid Lo'an are deep in a conversation, though Kira is too far away to have any idea what they’re talking about.

The final member of the party, the massive, armored tiefling, Kylo is trailing slightly behind the group, checking periodically over his shoulder, as though looking for signs that they are being followed.

Kira curses herself for her sloppiness the night before. She’s been shadowing them for two months without incident and of _course_ , as she was moving into her usual position for sleep – close enough to the party that the sounds of them breaking camp will wake her and prevent her from losing track of them – she’d tripped and ripped her cloak on a sharp rock.

And apparently that was all it had taken, because she could _feel_ the enchantment, which was spun into the very fabric of the garment, begin to flicker.

And Kylo, who had been taking his turn at watch, had caught sight of her.

 _Stupid, stupid, stupid_ , she chides herself. It was a miracle he hadn’t come after her.

_I need to be more careful._

It’s in that moment that Kylo’s head turns back and scans right past her, sending an electric thrill of terror down her spine. He doesn’t seem to notice her and the cloak is behaving well enough today. Though she should appear as nothing more than a mirage to anyone who caught sight of her, Kira still errs on the side of caution and ducks back behind a dead tree.

If only Jedha would answer her prayers and give her _any_ sort of guidance about what she is supposed to do now that she’s found the people he showed her, she could have dispensed with this whole game of hide-and-seek long ago.

Unfortunately, all she knows about this group is that they’re effective at killing people and prefer to attack first and ask questions later. She’s also tried to use her divine sense on them before, and while they hadn’t shone as great beacons of evil, enough of them were morally ambiguous to make her cautious.

So Kira follows after them in secret, same as she’s been doing for the last two months.

The day wears on and they finally begin to leave the desert behind and Kira gets her first real glimpse of the world outside of the endless sandy expanse of the Jakku Desert.

The smell of trees and distant water begins to suffuse the air as the earth beneath her feet slowly shifts yellow-gray, dry sand to a darker brown and the vegetation around them begins to look more and more verdant. They are on a steady uphill climb now, and whenever she pauses to look behind her, the desert basin is further and further below her.

They party splits from the road they have been following, opting to let their druid guide them towards their destination under the thicker cover of the trees. It’s a sound tactic to defend against ambush but it creates a conundrum for Kira. Now that her cloak is no longer fully functional, she gets the sense that _things_ lurking out beyond her vision have begun to take note of a single traveler. She can sense that something is stalking her, waiting for the chance to strike.

She is not without her defenses, but there’s no one to watch her back while she sleeps. And while she can manage a few sleepless nights, at some point the exhaustion will overtake her, and she will _need_ to sleep.

By the time party beds down for the evening, they are firmly in the depths of the forest that lines the sides of the mountains in the Eisley Crest like a thick blanket. A safe distance away, Kira curls into a ball for warmth, having no choice but to stay awake.

The forest is loud in comparison to the desert, which helps.

Wind rustling through leaves coupled with the sounds of insects chirping and buzzing away make almost a kind of rhythmic music. Any time she happens to drift off by accident, she snaps awake to the sound of a distant cry from some unknown beast.

 _You could always ask the party if you could join up with them,_ a little voice whispers in the back of her mind.

She scowls.

That’s a pipedream if ever there was one; if her god had meant for her to become part of this company, surely he would have given her the go-ahead to introduce herself long ago.

 _I don’t need them,_ she thinks fiercely, _I’ve relied on myself this far and everything has turned out fine. I don’t need to start cozying up to these people now just because I’m a little tired._

Kira holds fast to her resolve for the next three days, as they walk and camp, passing trees and streams and skirting around any signs of potential danger, until they reach the road through the mountain pass. As the first of the twin suns rises to its zenith, they begin to descend into Midrim at long last.

 _This is nothing,_ she reminds herself, as she watches the party eat their mid-day meal, blinking eyes that are having more trouble focusing than they had the day before. _You used to keep vigil at the temple for days at a time._

The world spins a little.

 _Damn_.

Kira closes her eyes and offers up a silent prayer to Jedha.

 _Hey, uh, sorry to bother you, I know you must be busy or you probably would have told me why you sent me after these guys a while ago… but uh… any chance you could tell me what I’m supposed to do here?_ She thinks, _or if I can trust them not to kill me on sight?_

The wind rustles through the leaves, but there’s no answer.

 _Fine,_ she thinks, making a decision, _at this rate I’m probably going to die either way._

Kira climbs to her feet, turning her cloak inside out, so that the pale gray inside, which looks like a perfectly average cloak, is wrapped about her body. If her god won’t help her, then she’s going to help herself; she’s going to walk right up to them and throw herself upon their dubious mercy.

Maybe she should have done this months ago. Maybe this is the last mistake she’ll ever make. At this point it hardly matters.

 _If they’re actually evil and I die here I hope it’s for a good cause,_ she thinks a bit peevishly in Jedha’s general direction. When he doesn’t strike her down on the spot, she just sighs and steps out from her hiding spot.

No one is looking in her direction, caught up as they are in whatever conversation they’re currently having, so Kira steeles her nerves and walks forwards.

She gets within a stone’s throw of the camp before they notice her, but as soon as Lo'an catches sight of her, the halfling lets out a cry, sending the whole party to their feet, weapons in hand.

Kira steps into the sunlight that illuminates their clearing.

* * *

“So Rey, why don’t you tell us what they see?” Poe asks, pausing his storytelling.

“Okay, uh, so what you see before you is a tiny half-elf woman dressed in silver scale maile, partially covered with a gray cloak and a bunch of cloth wraps to keep the metal from catching the light. She has long, red hair that’s pulled up into like… a high ponytail with a bunch of little, silver-beaded braids woven through it,” Rey says, using her hands to help illustrate her description, “her skin is tan and her eyes are very, _very_ green and very, _very_ wide because she’s very,  _very_  scared.”

Rey gives a little shrug. “Was that okay?”

“That was perfect,” he says, giving her a thumbs up. “Okay; what do you guys want to do?”

“Hey DM,” Ben says, leaning forwards on the table, “do I get the sense that this girl and the figure I saw following us might be related?”

“Who’s metagaming now,” Hux mutters and Rey sees Ben scowl out of the corner of her eye.

Poe’s lips twitch.

“Make an intelligence check,” he instructs Ben.

“Natural twenty,” Ben replies with a smirk.

“Oh shit,” Poe says, eyebrows flying up, “Rey, just FYI, that’s the highest thing you can roll on the die and it’s called a critical success. In 99% of cases it’s an automatic success on whatever you’re trying to do. So like right now, maybe Kylo got a good enough glimpse of you back at the outpost that he recognizes your figure or the way you move enough to be pretty damn positive that you’ve been following them for _at least_ four days.”

Rey gulps. She’d known that at some point she was obviously going to have to find a way for Kira to explain this but… she’d hoped to maybe get the party to _like_ her first.

“Great,” Ben says. “The second I realize that, I want to grapple her.”

“I want to not let him do that,” Rey replies, shooting a dirty look in Ben’s direction.

“Sounds like it’s time to roll initiative,” Poe replies, leaning forwards to set minifigs of both of their characters on the game map before him. “That’s a D20 roll plus your initiative bonus, Rey. This will determine the order of combat. Normally I’d give you a penalty here because you’re exhausted, but since this is your first roll of the game, we’re gonna go ahead and say that the adrenaline of combat has perked you up a bit.”

Rey nods and rolls her die, before checking her character sheet for the initiative bonus.

“Oh, I don’t have a bonus on that,” she says, a little disappointed, “but I rolled a sixteen so not too bad?”

“What did Kylo get, Ben?” Poe asks.

“I got a ninteen,” he says with a smirk.

“Sorry, Rey, Ben gets to go first,” Poe says. “Roll your attack and let’s see how this plays out.”

* * *

Kylo collides with her with like a thunderclap, pinning her bodily to the tree behind her. Her head cracks back against the wood of the trunk and Kira sees stars.

“It’s _you_ ; the shadow from the desert,” the tiefling snarls right in her face, crowding her further backwards so that she’s all but immobilized. “Why are you following us?”

“I’m –” she starts racking her brain frantically for a good answer and finding nothing. Instead, what she finds is anger that this _mountain_ of a man had attacked her utterly unprovoked, and is invading _her_ space, threatening her. And fuck it, she’s _way_ too tired for this.

“Get _off_ of me!” she spits back, and blasts him with a sacred flame. The golden light cracks across the tiefling’s chest and shoulders, shoving him away from her.

He stumbles back, bearing his teeth at her in a snarl in response to the sudden burst of pain. She darts back, taking up a defensive position.

The rest of the party, at least, seems too dumbstruck by how quickly events have transpired to step in.

“You’ve been following us for _days_ and you’re insane if you think you’re just gonna walk away from this one,” he says, taking a massive swing at her head with his sword, she just barely manages to dodge out of the way, but her movement puts her right in line for his empty hand to connect directly with her side, where the armor is designed to repel blades, but not so much blunt force trauma.

She stumbles back, letting out a wheeze of pain, before narrowing her eyes at him.

“I come in peace, asshole!” Kira yells, withdrawing her mace from beneath her cloak and twirling it in her hand before casting another sacred flame while swinging for his right hand, trying to get him to drop the sword.

Her blow connects and it’s the tiefling’s turn to hiss with pain, though he maintains his grip on the weapon.

They trade blows, darting back and forth across the increasingly open clearing, as trees and bushes become collateral damage in their battle. Despite their difference in size they are well matched. What she lacks in strength, she more than makes up for in her ability to anticipate his moves and block him at every turn. For his part, the tiefling fights with such force and ferocity that she knows they can’t keep this up for long.

“While I like a meal and a show as much as the next man, this is a bit much,” comes a crisply accented male voice, as the wizard steps forwards.

“What in the nine hells are you doing, Kylo?” Asks a high-pitched female voice that Kira assumes must belong to the druid.

“This is the little scavenger who’s been following us,” Kylo replies as he charges her again.

Kira blocks this strike with her mace. The impact causes a shockwave that sends the draped front part of her cloak flying back over her shoulders, revealing the holy symbol of Jedha emblazoned on her breastplate to his gaze for the first time. His pure, black eyes widen in surprise as he catches sight of it and he stumbles.

“If you’d just stop _trying to kill me_ I could explain everything!” Kira cries out, taking the opportunity to swing a punch right up and into Kylo’s chin. The force of the blow snaps his head back and sends him sprawling across the forest floor.

He hops right back to his feet, wiping blood away from his face and looking at her with murder in his eyes.

“Both of you need to calm the fuck down,” says a third, very irritated voice, and then the forest is suddenly filled with music and Kira’s limbs grow heavy.

She stumbles, feeling vaguely terrified that she’d about to collapse at the feet of the tiefling and he’s just going to _murder_ her, but across the clearing from her, she can see that he is _also_ falling prey to whatever magic is being worked here.

Silence falls as Dayo stops playing and both Kira and the tiefling have sunk to the ground like puppets whose strings have been cut.

 _It’s the adrenaline crash,_ she realizes distantly, _he must have calmed us and now all that damage I took is catching up._

With some difficulty, Kira manages to arrange her body into a sitting position, tipping her head back to blink up at the people who have congregated around her. The entire party, save Kylo, of course, looks down at her like they’ve never seen a half-elf before.

“Hi,” she finally says, because _no one else_ seems to know what to say, “this is going to sound weird _now_ , but I really just need a nap so I was hoping to throw myself upon your mercy and ask you to watch my back... or something.”

Dayo, lets out a surprised bark of laughing.

“Well that’s not what I was expecting,” he says. “How about you tell us what’s going on here and we can see about letting you nap here? Maybe start with what we can call you. And follow that up with why our boy Kylo thinks you’ve been shadowing us?”

Kira nods.

“My name is Kira,” she says, “and as insane as this sounds, I am a cleric of Jedha on a holy quest.”

The group all exchange glances once more, this time with raised eyebrows.

“And your quest involves… stalking us?” Dom asks, scratching a hand through his red hair, sending it into disarray.

“Sort of? Though stalking implies malicious intent and to be honest, I don’t really have _any_ intent,” Kira sighs, “Jedha sent me a vision of you all and told me to follow you towards my destiny. But… that’s all. He didn’t exactly leave me a guidebook for this whole thing, so I’ve just been trying to figure out why he sent me here. And then I realized I can’t go another day without taking a rest, which I can’t do with no one to watch my back. So I came to ask for help… and then _he–_ ”

She breaks off to give Kylo who is struggling to his feet once more a pointed look.

“– attacked me,” she finishes.

She yawns widely, then sighs.

“I told you; I’m really tired. It’s been about four days since I’ve had a real rest.”

At that, Lo'an’s face does a complete transformation from skepticism to sympathy.

“Oh no, you must be _exhausted_! That’s _way_ too long! Dom, go make her some coffee,” she says, shooing the wizard back towards the campsite, ignoring his protests until he throws his hands up and relents.

“I’m Lo'an,” she says.

“Nice to meet you,” Kira replies, pretending this is new information because she’s already admitted to enough questionable behavior today.

“The grumpy one is Dom, your couple’s therapist over there is Adedayo, but everyone just calls him Dayo,” Lo'an continues as the bard gives a sardonic little bow.

“You’re welcome and I’ll send you the bill in a couple days. Hope you’ve got good insurance because I don’t come cheap,” he says with a wink.

“Kylo is the angry one. I promise he’s okay once you get to know him; we’ve just all been on edge lately,” Lo'an continues before pointing at the half-orc woman who has remained pensively silent throughout this whole exchange, “and this is Gwenna.”

“A Jedha cleric, huh?” She asks, squatting down so that she can look Kira in the eye. “Where’s your temple?”

“Niima,” Kira admits, a little sheepishly and when Gwenna’s eyes widen a bit in surprise she wonders if she should maybe be worried that they’re gonna want to kill her again since she’s just admitted to following them for _months_.

“What are your thoughts on the Sith Empire and their portal to the Nine Hells?” Lo'an asks, leaning against Gwenna’s shoulder to give Kira an appraising look.

She scowls fiercely. “The Sith and their foul magic are abominations who must be fought at every available opportunity. They’ve been spreading into Jakku with the help of the smuggler rings for years now and it’s been all we could do at the temple to combat their attempts to annex Niima as well.”

Lo'an gives her a nod, seeming to find her answer satisfactory, before turning her head to meet Gwenna’s gaze. For her part, the half-orc sighs and gives a little shrug, before turning back to Kira.

“Well, you can certainly hold your own and it would be nice to have someone around who could keep Dom from nearly dying every time he stubs a toe,” she says. “Besides, as you may have noticed from the imperial assassin corpses we’ve left in our wake, we’re no friends of the Empire either. If your god has commanded you to follow us around anyway, you might as well do it where we can keep an eye on you.”

Then Gwenna stands back up, glancing at Lo'an and Dayo for approval. The halflings nod and Gwenna crosses her arms over her chest, a look of satisfaction settling on her face.

“Then it’s settled. Welcome to the Resistance, Kira,” she says.

Dom comes back and passes her an almost alarmingly fancy porcelain cup filled with steaming hot, dark brown liquid, interrupting whatever Kira might have said to express her bemused gratitude.

“Trail coffee, fresh as it comes – which is to say these beans have been in a bag of holding for only the gods know how long and that’s just too bad,” he says with a sigh.

Kira doesn’t even bother to say thanks before knocking back the cup, hardly even registering the way it scalds her lips and tongue. She’s not sure if it’s the calm emotions spell or just her general lack of any sort of refined manners that keeps her from giving a single fuck about how uncivilized she must look.

* * *

“So she just like downs the whole cup in one massive swallow,” Rey says, miming the action and eliciting laughter from the group. “Like it’s kind of horrifying because she’s got coffee dripping down her chin, but she’s so tired and so desperate for either sleep _or_ some kind of energy boost that she doesn't care.”

“Not even bothering to check for poison, huh?” Hux asks.

“ _Is_ it poisoned?” she replies, raising an eyebrow and looking between Poe and Hux for an answer.

“Nah,” Hux says, “but it could have been! This is D&D, you can never be too careful!”

“Always check your drinks for poison _and_ traps when Dom’s around,” Phasma advises.

Hux rolls his eyes and takes a _long_ drink from his glass.

“That was _one_ time,” he says with a huff.

Poe looks over at Ben, who has been fairly silent since their combat ended.

“What’s Kylo up to, Ben?” he asks.

Ben gnaws his lip and shoots a glance over in Rey’s direction.

“So… seeing the Jedha symbol was kind of a shock for him, for _reasons_ ,” Ben says slowly, “but he also still doesn’t trust her, no matter how pretty her words were. So I think he’s gonna wait until everyone else has gotten distracted with something else and he can get a moment alone with her.”

“I don’t think anyone is just gonna let you around her unsupervised for a while,” Finn says, wryly, “after all you did just try to kill her.”

“Then Kylo is gonna try to persuade everyone that he _won’t_ do that again, that he just wants to ask her something in private,” Ben replies.

“And how are you gonna do that?” Poe asks.

Ben scrubs his hands over his face.

‘I don’t know… maybe he’s like ‘I have theology questions for her’?” he says.

“Yup that would do it,” Rose replies with a snort. “I think at that point, Lo'an would be like ‘ugh not _god talk_ ’ and tell Kira to holler if she needs anything. Then she’d probably drag Gwenna off to the camp to keep an eye on all the party’s stuff.”

“Dayo has gone back to chowing down too,” Finn says, “doesn’t matter what’s happening; ya boy’s gotta eat.”

Rey smiles at that, remembering how dysfunctional Finn himself becomes when his blood sugar gets too low.

“Okay, is Dom gonna let this private convo happen?” Poe asks, turning to address his boyfriend.

“Oh, Dom is gonna let it happen but mostly because he’s also gonna try to eavesdrop,” Hux says.

“Okay then, Dom make a stealth check and Kira and Kylo, tell me what your passive perceptions are,” Poe instructs. “That’s the stat that says how much you notice just in general, Rey.”

It takes Rey a bit to find her Passive Perception on her character sheet and after a while of looking around to no avail, Ben leans over and points it out. Rey notices that he has a black and red design like a geometric flower inked on the back of his right hand. She wishes that she could ask him to hold his hand in place there a while longer so that she can get a proper look, but she can only imagine the level of scorn that request would be met with.

“Thanks,” she says instead, giving him a hesitant smile, just a little surprised. It’s the first time he’s interacted with her outside of roleplaying since they started.

“Don’t mention it,” he mumbles.

“Seventeen!” Rey says, proudly.

“Yeah mine is a nine so…” Ben sighs.

“Well I rolled a natural one for stealth so it doesn’t even matter,” Hux replies with a snort.

“Yeah, the _second_ Kylo catches Dom like trying to hide – _poorly_ – in a bush and listen in, he’s gonna go stand directly over him with one hand on the hilt of his sword until Dom slinks back off to join the rest of the group. _And_ he’s gonna make sure that Millicent goes with him,” Ben says, giving Hux a victorious grin.

The ginger man sighs and rolls his eyes.

“Fine, _fiiiiine_ ,” he says, “you guys never let me have any fun.”

“That is _patently_ untrue,” Poe says, dryly. “I let you take Conjure Animals even though it’s not on the wizard spell list.”

“I’m a _conjuration_ wizard; I should be able to use _any_ of the spells with ‘conjure’ in the name,” Hux sniffs. “It’s common sense.”

“Hey,” Poe says, giving Hux a look that is both fond and lightly murderous. “It’s not _my_ fault you didn’t read up on the schools of magic before you chose yours.”

The red head heaves a dramatic sigh and sprawls back in his chair.

“Whatever,” he mutters.

“So,” Poe says, turning back to address Rey and Ben, “now that you’re alone again, what do you do?”

* * *

“Follow me,” Kylo says, before turning and heading deeper into the forest.

“Uh, I don’t think so,” Kira replies, shaking her head. “Full offense but you just _attacked me_ unprovoked and you still look like I kicked your puppy.”

Kylo takes a deep breath and turns back to look at her.

“‘I swear on the name of the Lord of Light, that my hand is raised in peace and my shield is lowered in trust’,” he grinds out the Vow of Accord, the sacred words spoken to bless the meeting of warring parties for the signing of a treaty, like they cause him no small measure of aggravation to speak and Kira’s eyes widen in surprise.

Of all the party members, the tiefling was the last one she would have expected to quote the _Text of Jedha_ to her. He’s not exactly a warrior, but he’s no spell caster either. The way he fights – with sword and spell in equal measure – reminds her a of a paladin, but if that were the case, she would have been able to tell from the start.

She’s not certain of how much the vow means, but the fact that he knows it off the top of his head is enough to make her concede to his request, at least. As he turns to walk off into the forest, she follows.

The calm emotions spell has long since worn off, but her earlier fear and rage have not returned. Instead she feels cautious and a little confused, but she’s willing to see where this goes.

She reaches out once more with her divine sense, hoping that their proximity might clear up her reading of him. As before, what she feels from Kylo leaves her with more questions than answers. There is something about him, something at once sacred and corrupted. The tiefling is a neutral space in the world, neither good nor evil. Just _alive_.

A few minutes later, Kylo stops walking and turns to look back at her.

“I don’t trust you,” he says, crossing his armor-covered arms across his chestplate.

“It’s mutual,” she says, glaring at him, “but you really have more cause to trust me than I do to trust you.”

“Oh?” Kylo sneers, tilting his horned head slightly. “How so?”

“To begin with, I never came anywhere near you guys, even though I had _plenty_ of chances to on all the nights you were all too hurt and tired to keep watch,” Kira replies evenly, examining the back of her gauntleted hand, wiping at a smudge from where it had connected with the tiefling’s chin earlier.

Kylo opens his mouth to respond, and this close, Kira can see the barest hint of his fangs protruding from under his lip. She holds up a hand to silence him.

“Also, you could put me under a zone of truth right now and I would answer any question you asked without hesitation,” she says, pinning him with a piercing stare. “Could you say the same?”

Kylo’s jaw snaps shut and he falls mutinously silent.

“I didn’t think so,” she says, with a sigh. “Honestly, though; it seems we are aligned against the same enemy. We both believe that the Sith should be destroyed, and I see no reason that we should not at least be allies until I learn why Jedha sent me to you in the first place.”

Kylo’s face grows impossibly stormier at her last words and his long, red, whip-like tail flicks in irritation, the spade-shaped tip lashing through the air.

“You put _far_ too much faith in a being that barely even knows you exist,” he spits, “and it’s that blind devotion that keeps me from trusting you. Because even if _you_ think that you bear me and my party no ill will, if your god sneezed and accidentally sent you a sign that you could interpret as an order to murder us in our sleep, you would do it without hesitating.”

Kira jerks back as if she’s been slapped.

“For someone who knows the _Text of Jedha_ as well as you do, I’m shocked by how little you seem to have learned from it,” she fires back.

Kylo smiles at her, but there is no humor or warmth in it.

“You know what they say, Kira,” he says her name like a rumble of thunder. Kylo takes a step towards her, and then another, so that he can _loom_ more effectively. Not that he needs much help; he has a foot and a half on her at least and like this, he is a black and red pilar blocking what little sunlight actually manages to filter through the canopy above. “It’s always a good idea to know your enemies well. I don’t believe in the gods and they sure as shit don’t believe in _any_ of us.”

She takes an involuntary half step back as a cold shiver crawls down her spine.

“What- if you fight the Sith then how can you possibly-” she stammers before gathering herself and leaning back in towards him. “You’re a fool to call Jedha your enemy. After all, you who claim to fight back the darkness should know that your best weapon in that war is the light.”

“Fire and the suns both cast light, little bird,” Kylo says, reaching out to tap one of his clawed fingers against the delicate, engraved wings that decorate the top of the breastplate that covers her clavicle. Then he takes a step back, “I prefer to rely on the one I can control.”

It’s Kira’s turn to be struck dumb, leaving her to ball her hands into fists in futile anger while Kylo regards her from beneath the mask of cool indifference that has fallen over his face.

“You can travel with us for as long as it pleases everyone else,” he says, at last, “because they seem to have taken a shine to you and you can hold your own in a fight. But know that I am watching you. And if you move against us, I will kill you.”

“Fine,” she spits at him, throwing her hands in the air, “go ahead and watch. Maybe you’ll learn something.”

Then she whirls on the spot and begins stalking back towards the group, where, despite the suns still hanging high in the sky, Lo’an has laid out a bedroll for her.

She can feel Kylo’s endless black eyes on her the whole way back.

* * *

Kira gets her nap, and then the group resumes their trek, as a unified party this time.

They play for another hour and a half until the point that they’ve all begun to yawn in real life and most roleplay has devolved into speaking in memes and laughing at the unfortunately named “Thallus” mountain.

“Sorry Poe,” Rose says through her laughter, “but I can’t believe you didn’t see how that could be misheard.”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s just dick joke central with you assholes,” he says, with a long suffering sigh. “So once they manage to move past both this terrible joke _and_ the mountain, you walk along the road for about another hour until you come to a fork with a weatherbeaten signpost planted at the apex. The sign that points to the western fork says Mos Eisley, which Lo'an and Dayo, you both know is a medium sized town with a reputation for debauchery, and the Eastern Fork says Fort Almas.”

Finn looks up from scribbling notes feverishly to ask, “so there’s no indication of which direction it is to Takodana?”

“Nope. All the information you’ve gathered thus far indicates that Takodana itself is very well hidden and if you want to find it – and the rebel base located there – you’re going to need to gain the confidence of someone who knows the location.”

“It sounds like Mos Eisley is our best bet then,” Phasma says, “I feel like we’ll have an easier time moving freely in a city than a military encampment, you know?”

“I agree,” Ben says.

“So Mos Eisley?” Poe asks, looking around the table to see if everyone is in agreement. Hux looks like he wants to argue, but decides against it and just shrugs instead.

“Alright,” Poe says, “so you begin to head down the western fork towards the city of Mos Eisley.”

“Do we see anything interesting along the way? Like landmarks or anything?” Rey asks. “I rolled a perception check – if that’s the right thing – and got a twelve.”

“Yep! Good memory. And you see a couple of places that looks like old campsites sandwiched between the road and the thick forest on either side,” Poe says, “but not much else.”

“I just want to say that the whole time we’ve been walking as a group, Kira has been pointing to all sorts of different trees and animals and like rivers and stuff and asking what they are because she’s never seen _anything_ other than the desert before,” she says.

Phasma groans, burying her face in her hands, “oh my god, she’s _such_ a tourist.”

“Total tourist,” Rey agrees, grinning.

“So you guys walk along the road for another couple hours and as you go, you begin to see something you haven’t seen in a _very_ long time,” Poe says, “other people on the road.”

“Oh shit,” Finn says, leaning forwards on the table. “Can we ask any of them if they’re headed to Mos Eisley?”

“Sure,” Poe says. “How do you guys wanna do that?”

“If we see someone with a cart that looks big enough that it could carry us, I think we try to flag it down,” Hux says.

“Alright, well it takes you about another hour of walking but as you pass a junction where a little side road connects with the main path, you see a human man kneeling down by the side of an open-topped, mostly empty wagon, drawn by two oxen. He’s staring at a broken wheel and scratching his head,” Poe says.

“Okay,” says Finn, “so Dayo will go up to this dude and say ‘hail and well met, my good man’ and like lean casually against the side of his cart.”

Poe laughs. “The man says ‘Oh! Ah, hello.’ And looks like he really hopes that whatever you want is quick.”

“Gwenna will join them,” Phasma says, “she’ll say ‘We’re making our way to Mos Eisley and seeing as how you’re not carrying much, we wondered if you might be able to give us a lift in exchange for a bit of coin. If you’re going that direction, of course.’”

“So the man – looks to be about mid-fifties, big, white bushy mustache and beard, a little extra padding around the gut – looks down at his wagon wheel and sighs,” says Poe, who takes on the posture and facial expression of the character he’s playing. “The man says ‘well I’d love to help you out, but as you can see’, he gestures to the broken wheel, ‘we’re all out of luck’.”

Finn grins. “Dayo is gonna lean in like a salesman on an infomercial and tell the guy ‘well, what do you know; I think I can fix both our problems’ and then he’ll wink, for good measure.”

“The guy looks cautiously optimistic and he says ‘Really? You can?’,” Poe says.

“Gwenna’s gonna clap Dayo on the shoulder at this point and say ‘It’s a hard job, but if anyone can do it, it’s my friend Dayo here,” Phasma says.

Finn, who is matching Poe’s level at this point waves a hand in front of his face, as though swatting away an errant fly.

“Of course!” He says, “How about this? If I can fix your wheel, you take us to Mos Eisley and we call it an even trade?”

Poe mimes turning the proposition over in his head for a moment before breaking character and addressing Finn as the DM once again.

“Roll me a persuasion check, with advantage, because Gwenna is backing you up,” Poe instructs.

“I am _made_ of persuasion,” Finn says, rolling a pair of D20’s into his dice box. “Aw yeah; I got a sixteen and a twenty-three, so I’m gonna take that twenty-three, baby.”

“Very good,” Poe says with a grin. “So the guy is gonna step back and hold out his hand indicating for you to do what you will with his wheel.”

“I cast Mending on the wheel,” Finn says.

“You mend that wheel so well that it doesn’t even look like it belongs on this rickety old cart any more,” Poe tells him, “and the man is so excited by this that he lets out a low whistle before going to fold down the back of the cart. ‘A deal’s a deal!’ he says to you.”

“Hey, uh, are we just gonna get in his cart without asking his name?” Rose interjects.

“I don’t know,” Poe says, laughing, “are you?”

“Dom definitely is,” Hux says, “he climbs right up onto that cart and finds what looks like the most comfortable spot. Then he sets Millicent on what looks like the _second_ most comfortable spot.”

Phasma rolls her eyes into the next week.

“Kira says ‘since we’re going to be spending some time in your company, may we have the pleasure of your name?’” Rey pipes up.

“He tells you that his name is Wedge,” Poe tells her and Finn scribbles that factoid down in his notebook. ‘What do you all do? Besides Dom, who’s already making himself at home.”

“We all get in the cart, I guess,” Ben says.

Everyone else nods in response.

“Alright, well you all hop in and arrange yourselves in all of the lesser seating positions that are not occupied by Dom or his familiar,” Poe tells them, “and Wedge shuts the back before climbing into the driver’s seat. He cracks his whip and the oxen take off at a steady pace down the road in the direction of Mos Eisley.”

“Kylo is sitting as far away from Kira as possible, staring at her from out of the corner of his eye the whole time,” Ben says, making Rey sigh in response.

 

“So you guys ride with Wedge as the suns both begin to sink towards the horizon and the shadows grow long. And you’re all yawning and realizing exactly how hard your last few months have been and how long it’s been since you actually went somewhere that you didn’t have to hike to, but you’re also getting a little antsy because you don’t know how long it’s supposed to take to get to the city,” Poe says. “But just as the second sun starts to go down, and the road begins to grow dark, you see lights flickering in the distance, above the trees. And as you come around a bend in the road, you get your first glimpse of the outer walls and massive portcullis protecting the city. You’ve reached Mos Eisley.”

Poe closes his book and smiles at the group.

“And that’s where we’re going to stop for the night.”

“Ugh, I _hate_ how good you are at ending games in a way that I’m going to be unable to think about _anything_ else all week,” Phasma says, giving Poe a dirty look.

“Love you too, Phas,” he says and blows her a kiss.

Rey blinks, feeling as though she’s coming out of a trance. Through the kitchen windows she can see that the sky has turned dark and the five hours that have passed since she arrived seem to have all but disappeared.

Her butt is a little sore from sitting for so long, but she hardly cares; the whole experience was _exhilarating_. Even the awkwardness with Ben at the beginning has been forgotten in favor of throwing herself fully into the immersion of Poe’s game world.

“Thank you all for playing, guys,” Poe says. “And thank you Rey for joining us! You did a great job, especially for your first time playing D&D!”

“Yeah, your talk with Kylo gave me actual chills,” Rose says.

Rey feels her cheeks heat a little and turns to shoot a grin in Ben’s direction as well. “It was a team effort. And it was really fun! Thanks for not killing me.”

“You’re welcome,” Ben says, a little stiffly, before busying himself shoving all his stuff into his bag.

And yep, his cool, dismissive attitude still stings.

Even though Ben hadn’t hesitated to interact with her in game space, Rey had been able to feel the discomfort radiating off of him in real life for the entire game. Which wasn’t great for her, to put it mildly, because it was a blaring, negative distraction from what had been an otherwise incredible evening.

It’s just so obvious that Ben doesn’t like her and isn’t going to bother hiding it. Which really sucks.

She forces herself to set her moping aside for the drive home and bids farewell to her friends both new and old.

“I’ll add you to the group text,” Poe says, “and our discord server too. I use it to send you guys special fun surprises so be sure to check it regularly.”

“When he says fun what he means is traumatic,” Finn says, leaning over to stage whisper in Rey’s ear.

“That’s slander and hearsay,” Poe says, pointing towards the front door, “take that trash talk and get out of my house.”

“See you next week guys,” Rose says, waving as she begins leading Finn towards the exit, “I’m gonna take this oaf home before he gets us both uninvited.”

“I’m out too,” Phasma says, “Rey, good to see you again and I’m happy that you’re helping to balance out this sausage fest.”

“I’m gonna go put on a Korean face mask and watch Real Housewives until I pass out,” says Hux, who kisses Poe on the cheek then simply disappears into the bedroom without so much as an adieu.

Which leaves Rey, Poe, and Ben alone in the den.

Poe looks like he wants to say something but decides against it and shakes his head.

“Get home safely you two; I gotta go make sure Hux isn’t using all my hair products again. Let me walk you out so I can lock up.”

“Thanks again for inviting me,” Rey says, “this was really fun.”

“We’re glad to have you. All of us are, right Ben?” Poe says, shooting the taller man a pointed look as they made their way across the living room towards the foyer.

“Sure,” Ben says flatly.

Poe sighs.

“Forgive him; he has no social skills and doesn’t realize when he’s being rude,” Poe says, causing Ben to scowl at him.

“Shut the fuck up, Poe,” he says, before scrubbing a hand across his jaw and looking Rey directly in the eye for the first time since he walked in.

“Listen, you’re a good player and I’m reasonably sure you’re not trying to sell me out to the paparazzi, so we’re fine. Okay? Great. I’m going home, it’s been a long week. Goodnight,” Ben says, before stalking out the front door.

“You know…” Rey frowns after Ben’s retreating figure, “I think that’s the first time someone’s apology has ever made me want to forgive them _less_.”

Poe claps her on the shoulder and gives her a supportive squeeze.

“That’s Ben for you,” he says. “The good news is that you’ve already seen him on his worst behavior so it can really only go up from here.”

“Let’s hope that’s the case,” Rey says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: Things (and by things I mean tempers) heat up at the gaming table (and everywhere else) and a wild BACKSTORY appears in the game.
> 
> I’m about to hop on an airplane in like THIRTY MINUTES and I’m not really a huge fan of flying!!! So leave me a comment so I have something to help me de-stress when I land?
> 
> Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated and encourage me to write faster!
> 
> If you’d like to support my work (or just want to yell at me about this story), you can do so on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/commandercait), [CuriousCat](https://curiouscat.me/commandercait), or [Tumblr](http://commandercait.tumblr.com) (even though I’m really not using it much since they’ve decided to set their whole platform on fire).


	3. Dungeons & Flagons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this was a day late! I got really sick and was too feverish to figure out all my formatting yesterday. Also sorry I’m so behind on answering comments! I’m working on getting to as many as I can, but trust me that I see and appreciate every single one!
> 
> I’ll be posting character sheets for everyone’s D&D characters and playlists for this fic on my twitter over the course of the next week so keep an eye out for those!
> 
> All my love to my INCREDIBLE beta team: [cyborgharpy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyborgharpy), [VioletWilson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/violetwilson), and [LoveofEscapism](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveofEscapism) for helping me turn this fic into something readable and holding my hand while I panicked about everything. They seriously do so much and I love them with ALL MY HEART. (Also I got to hug Violet when she came to LA and it was great.)
> 
> The lovely aionimica is back at it again with [INCREDIBLE ART](https://twitter.com/aionimica/status/1119751930056724480)!  
> Please don’t forget to tag me if you make something cool related to this story so I can share it in the next chapter!!!

_Fuck D &D, fuck Poe Dameron, fuck that Rey girl. Fuck it all. Fuck everything,_ Ben thinks, grip tightening to the point of discomfort around the handlebars of his motorcycle. _I never should have joined this stupid game._

He’s sitting at the intersection of Laurel Canyon Dr and Moorpark St, black Ducati Sport Classic rumbling away beneath him, waiting for the stoplight to turn green so that he can keep riding away from his problems. Streetlights hold back the purple-darkness of LA nightfall, illuminating the black asphalt and white lane markers.

The stoplight finally changes, painting the intersection emerald. Ben picks up his foot and cranks the throttle, revving his bike’s engine louder than is appropriate for 12:24 AM on a Sunday, as he speeds off down the mostly empty street.

“God damnit!” He snaps into the muffled silence of his motorcycle helmet. Somehow the more he thinks about how his night had gone, the angrier he gets.

Ben had known, with dead certainty, before he’d even walked through the door, that Rey’s introduction to the party was going to be a shitshow.

It just wasn’t fucking _fair_ that when he’d finally found a place where he was allowed to be _himself_ – even if it was in the guise of a tiefling named Kylo – that someone new could just waltz in and ruin everything.

He leans left, switching lanes to pass a slow-moving car.

The real kicker here is that by all rights, Rey should have been the ideal new party member.

She hadn’t even _recognized_ him, for fuck’s sake.

Ben can hardly even remember the last time he’d actually had to introduce himself to someone who _honestly_ didn’t already know who he was. Their first meeting should have been as smooth as butter, putting his fears to rest and making him excited about the fascinating possibilities that Rey’s character Kira was bringing to the story.

But that was not to be. Instead, the second she’d made eye contact – giving him the same judgemental once over that he’d been subjected to his entire life – the anxiety that had been building inside of him for weeks had boiled over and he’d snapped.

All of this had happened approximately two seconds before Ben had even had time to really get a look at the woman in front of him.

Not that things had improved much, once he had. Because the second his brain had caught up to what his eyes were seeing, his libido, which had been AWOL since the _incident_ , had decided to show back up and throw a house party. All of his higher brain functions had simply switched off, leaving his useless mouth to run on autopilot.

Even sitting down, he could tell that Rey was lean and willowy, built like a dancer, with the sort of muscle tone and tanned skin that spoke to an active life in the SoCal sunlight. She was dressed in a pair of gray yoga pants and a fitted yellow t-shirt that read _‘the future is female’_ in bold black letters across her chest.

Her shoulder-length chestnut hair was loose and wavy around a sweet face, sprinkled with freckles that seemed to exist exclusively to show off a pair of hazel eyes. Her perfect cupid’s bow lips had parted in mild surprise as she regarded him.

Apparently, his ability to find other people attractive hadn’t vanished for good. It had just been biding its time until Rey showed up.

Ben switches lanes and shifts uncomfortably on the seat of his bike, as his dick gives a twitch at the _mere thought of her_. Apparently this is his life now. He’s full of anger _and_ unresolved sexual tension.

It’s almost tragically hilarious, that the first time he realizes he _desires_ anything other than fucking alcohol, or Xanax, or coke… it’s the girl he’s been setting himself up to hate for several weeks straight.

A girl who now definitely dislikes him almost as much as he dislikes her.

 _Maybe if you hadn’t gone in swinging things could have turned out differently,_ a little voice whispers in the back of his mind, but he swats it away.

Their meeting had, as Ben had predicted, been a shitshow and there’s no point in wishing that away.

Rey is – and _was always going to be_ , he reminds himself – a big fucking problem.

The icing on this shitty cake is that this is a corner that he has backed himself into.

 _He’s_ the one who went and accepted Poe’s invitation to play in the first place.

 _He’s_ the one who managed to become instantly and (probably) unhealthily invested in this stupid game, to the point that the idea of quitting makes his stomach lurch with panic.

Ben had never been any good at doing things in moderation in the past, and clearly that’s still true. This is his new addiction and he’s nearly as hooked on D&D as he was on every substance that came before it.

And, worst of all, _Ben_ is the one who had agreed to let Rey join the game in the first place.

All of this could have been prevented if he had actually been honest that he liked things the way they were and _was not_ comfortable with the idea of a stranger playing with them.

But of course, the one time he’d actually decided to give being the nice guy a shot, it had bitten him in the ass.

It had been… novel and good to have friends who saw him as a human being and something to look forward to every week. And while Ben still couldn’t bring himself to actually say as much aloud, this had felt like a convenient way to express it.

He’d felt so smug about finding a shortcut through all the mushy emotional bullshit that he hadn’t even considered the bigger implications of letting this new person into the game.

And now it’s too fucking late.

Pandora’s box is wide open and Pandora herself has joined his party. All because Ben had tried to be the good guy.

 

 _I just can’t catch a break,_ he thinks as he turns onto Mulholland Dr.

* * *

Because he has very little _else_ going on in his life, Ben spends his Sunday moving from his bed to the sofa, to a _different_ sofa, to the chaise lounge by the pool and then, inevitably, back to his bed, replaying his first encounter with Rey over and over again in his head all the while.

Well, all the bad parts of it anyway.

He very carefully doesn’t let himself think _at all_ about what a good scene partner she was or how easy it had been to roleplay with her.

Or the way her hand had felt in his during that _stupid_ handshake she’d initiated… soft and small and warm and –

_Nope. Not going there._

None of that matters when measured against the fact that her very presence at the gaming table is effectively ruining the entire experience for him.

She’s distracting, her inexperience slows down combat, and she’s thrown a wrench into the social dynamic – both in and out of character – that Ben has only _just_ figured out.

Ben goes to therapy and talks around his issues with Dr. Holdo for an hour on Tuesday afternoon. He doesn’t even know how to begin explaining the situation to his therapist. He actually feels kind of stupid that he’s this worked up in the first place.

Not that his subconscious brain has gotten that memo.

Rey is a splinter that Ben just can’t dig out from underneath his skin. She’s far more irritating than her diminutive stature would suggest.

So he talks about the fact that he’s still having trouble motivating himself to leave his house and the fact that spending the money he made from his acting gigs makes him nauseous, which has him leaving therapy with a slightly higher prescription for Lamictal and no real solutions.

The days pass in a haze of brooding and trying to work his frustration out on the exercise equipment at his gym. He spends a few hours on Wednesday evening, punching a sandbag so hard that his hands go numb.

It doesn’t make him feel any better but at least it gives him something else to focus on for a while. Anything but _her_.

By Thursday morning, he’s grown quite accustomed to seeing Rey’s name popping up on the screen of his iPhone, each notification snapping against his psyche like an electric shock.

He watches, like the masochist he is, as Rey gets caught up on all the details of the campaign that she as a player had missed, but that Kira, who had been watching them the whole time, would have known.

Ben tries hard to ignore the creeping jealousy over how easily she integrates herself into their close knit world. It had taken him _moths_ to relax around these people but Rey doesn’t seem to share his hangups about letting her guard down.

> _**To: Dungeon Dummies** _
> 
> **_From: Rey Sanderson_ **
> 
> _i cant stop thinking about next session is it always like this?????_
> 
> _**From: Finn Gunner** _
> 
> _Ahahaha! Yessss goooood! The D &D gods have claimed another victim! Welcome to the rest of your life peanut!!_
> 
> _**From: Rose Tico** _
> 
> 💯💯💯💯💯💯🎉🎉🎉🎉😎😎😎😎😎😎 _Y E P_
> 
> _**From: Phasma Scyre** _
> 
> _LOL_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _3 days is too long to wait omggggggg_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _cant we just play all the time?_
> 
> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _In my DREAMS haha!_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _mine too poe thanks again for letting me join and i really hope its not weird having me there_
> 
> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _No, you’re wonderful and we love you._
> 
> _**From: Armitage Hux** _
> 
> _Hey did one of you fucks steal my lapis lazuli D20 last session?_
> 
> _**From: Armitage Hux** _
> 
> _Woops, sorry, didn’t realize feelings were happening. Carry on._
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _lol_ 💛 _and thanks poe ur game is great i just dont wanna ruin it_

It’s not the first time she’s expressed such a sentiment in the chat and just like before, her irritating ‘don’t wanna be a bother’ routine makes Ben want to break something. If she really cared about intruding, she never would have joined an existing D&D campaign in the first place.

Surely a girl who looks like she does could walk into any gaming store in the city and have a line of love-struck nerds begging for her to join _their_ games. She has a million options. She’s a nobody with a pretty face in a city where that’s practically legal tender.

Ben doesn’t have _anywhere else_ to go. This is it for him. These are the only people he can play with. The only space with actual privacy and players who don’t give a fuck about who he is out of character. _He_ can’t go to a game store and join a random table. Some asshole would snapchat about him or tweet his location and the fucking paparazzi would be knocking down the door in three seconds flat.

He’s already learning to hate his phone in special new ways when the private texts from Poe start coming in.

> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _Ben, I know you’ve been in this campaign since the beginning and I know that you’ve got some serious shit going on…_
> 
> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _But we’ve gotta fucking talk about how you treated Rey last Saturday, dude._
> 
> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _She’s asked me FOUR times if she should withdraw from the game. FOUR._
> 
> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _Not because she’s scared of your bullshit, mind you, but because she doesn’t want to make things uncomfortable for everyone else._
> 
> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _She’s a GOOD PERSON and I don’t know why you felt like it was okay to treat her like that._
> 
> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> If you want to keep playing at my table you have to knock that shit off.
> 
> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _You also need to be straight with me if something is a problem._
> 
> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _Because I asked you point blank if Rey joining was gonna rock your world too much and you said it was fine._
> 
> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _Which is OBVIOUSLY not true._
> 
> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _Don’t bottle shit up, dude. I’m here if you need to talk and I want you to keep playing, but I have to be fair to everyone else too._
> 
> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _And I know you’re reading these even though you’re ignoring me like an asshole because you’ve got your read receipts on._

Ben swears loudly in the silence of his home and goes to change his text settings. The phone is new, a replacement for the last one he broke in a fit of frustrated rage after a call with his father.

 

_God fucking damnit._

He wants a re-roll on this whole situation.

He wants to crawl into a hole and never come out.

He wants a fucking drink.

Ben rolls over onto his back on his too-expensive memory foam mattress and groans.

“Fucking hell,” he mutters at his high, white-painted ceiling.

His phone buzzes again and he turns his head to look at the messages.

> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _Oh, and you should really apologize to Rey._
> 
> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _Or I’ll drop a Tarrasque on Kylo and you can roll up a Level 1 character._

Unfortunately, Poe’s words leave very little room for interpretation: if he actually wants to keep playing he has to make things right with Rey.

“Shit. Fuck. _Fine_ ,” Ben says, as though Poe can hear him.

He rolls himself up into a seated position and takes his phone in his hands. The device reflects his unhappy face, disheveled hair, and five o'clock shadow in the black mirror of the screen.

“It’s just apologizing,” he mutters, clicking over to Rey’s contact info to send her a private message. “People do this all the time. How hard can it be?”

He stares at the empty white textbox and the gray keyboard on his screen for fifteen minutes.

 _Hello, Ben here! –_ nope.

 _This is Ben from D &D I don’t know if you remember – _absolutely not.

 _Hi, this is me apologizing. Accept it and tell Poe everything is fine so he’ll get off my dick already –_ no and _also_ Poe would actually kill him.

Ben scrubs his left hand over his face.

“Fuck,” he mutters into the silence. “Why is this so fucking hard?”

It takes a while but he finally comes up with something that works.

> **_From: Ben Solo_ **
> 
> _Hi, Rey. This is Ben. I want to apologize for all the shit I said on Saturday. I was having a bad day and lost my temper._

He hits send and blows a breath out through his nose. It’s hardly the next great American novel, but whatever. It should be good enough to suffice.

Ben sets his phone aside and gets to his feet, stretching hard enough to elicit several loud pops from his back. He’s considering a trip to the grocery store when his phone buzzes again. He scoops it up warrily, half dreading what he’ll find there.

> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _hey uh… idk what to say here_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _did poe put u up to this?_
> 
>  

She’s certainly not going to make this easy on him, it would seem. Ben frowns and begins tapping out a response as he paces around his bedroom.

> _**From: Ben Solo** _
> 
> _He didn’t put me up to this._

It’s not a lie, technically; Poe isn’t so much ‘putting him up to it’ as he is flat out blackmailing him.

> _**From: Ben Solo** _
> 
> _I’m very, VERY sorry for Saturday. Okay? Okay._

There’s a long pause and Ben’s stomach ties itself into knots. Why is _everything_ with this girl such a goddamn ordeal?

> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _so heres the thing_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _i dont believe u_

Ben drops onto his bed and looks around for a pillow to scream into. Unfortunately, they’re all the way at the other end of his California king and he doesn’t have the energy to reach all the way across to retrieve one. Instead he furiously shoots back a response.

> _**From: Ben Solo** _
> 
> _What the hell are you talking about?_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _if u really felt bad_ _u wouldnt be getting mad at me AGAIN now_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _u made ur feelings SUPER clear on saturday_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _when the first thing u did was snarl at me for NO REASON_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _then u were rude as fuck the rest of the night only talked to me when we were RPing and insulted me again on the way out the door_
> 
> _**From: Ben Solo** _
> 
> _I’M not the one being a bitch by rejecting someone’s apology so I don’t know where you get off calling me rude._
> 
> _**From: Ben Solo** _
> 
> _I didn’t HAVE to apologize, you know. Serves me right for trying to be the good guy here…_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _im not accepting ur apology because u were really hurtful_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _and ur really not sorry_

Ben jerks back as though he’s been slapped. Not that he’s much of an expert in apologizing, but he’s pretty sure this is not how this is supposed to go.

> **_From: Ben Solo_ **
> 
> _What?_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _ive known enough liars in my life to pick them out even thru text_

There’s a long pause, during which the three little dots indicating that Rey is typing appear and disappear over and over again. He tries, without any luck to compose a coherent rebuttal, until he eventually gives up and just waits. At long last, her response appears.

> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> dont worry though
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _im not here to ruin ur game_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _all i want is to play with our friends and have a good time_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _same as u right?_

Ben feels like he’s stepping into a trap as he replies. This is so far off book that he’s almost terrified. Rey is a goddamn mystery and he literally has no idea what to expect from her.

> _**From: Ben Solo** _
> 
> _Yes?_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _then lets agree to_ _play the game and stay out of each others way_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _i dont bother u and you dont bother me_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _i wont even make kira talk to kylo unless absolutely necessary_
> 
> _**From: Ben Solo** _
> 
> _And what exactly do I get out of this arrangement?_

Ben feels something akin to a nervous breakdown beginning to dig its claws into his brain. He’s been completely outmaneuvered here.

  _**From: Rey Sanderson** _

> _i dont tell everyone that on top of being nasty to me u also called me a bitch for standing up for myself_ 🤷

_Motherfucking shit balls; this woman is a living nightmare,_ Ben thinks as his stomach swoops with fear at the very idea.

Despite the fact that Rey’s presence has changed things, this D&D game is _still_ really important to him. He can’t afford to lose the only good thing in his life right now. He just can’t.

So, hating her with every fiber of his being, Ben realizes that he’s been outplayed and does the only thing he can think to do in that moment: he concedes.

Well. In text, at least.

> _**From: Ben Solo** _
> 
> _Fine. Whatever._
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _good chat mate_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _see u on sat_ ✌️
> 
> _**From: Ben Solo** _
> 
> _Can’t wait._

Out loud, he says, “Yeah fucking right.”

Ben has tried to play nice and be polite or whatever the fuck, and she’s the one who’s not budging. If Rey is going to insist on sticking around then she’s just going to have to live with _her_ choices.

If she wants to play, then they will play. He’ll keep a grip on his temper. He’ll watch his tongue. But every chance he gets, he’s going to make her regret deciding to play with their group.

The image of Rey’s face screwed up with sadness as her character falls in battle and Ben makes no move to bring her back flashes across his mind. Her lips, pink and soft as rose petals would curl into such a charming pout and –

His dick twitches.

 _Fuck my whole life_ , he thinks with a groan.

This is going to be a very, very long campaign.

* * *

Mos Eisley, or the ‘City of Revelry’ as it is known by most of those who call it home, certainly lives up to its name.

Music and a dizzying array of colored light spills and splashes across the cobblestones from the open doors of the taverns and taprooms that line the city streets. Vendors hawk their goods far later into the evening than one would normally expect to find them out and about in a city, doing their best to lure the revelers to step beneath their cloth awnings or inside of their tents.

They’ve been in the city for two days now and Kylo has been on edge since the second they passed beneath the gate.

He’s got his black wool cowl pulled up over his head, hiding his horns and obscuring his face, but there’s little he can do to disguise the fact that he’s an enormous, red tiefling. He jumps at shadows and flinches at every sound. The Empire has spies _everywhere_ and all it would take is the wrong person catching a glimpse of him for everything to turn ugly very quickly.

Most of the first day is spent skulking about the warehouse district and trade ward, mixing and mingling with the lowlifes of the city, bribing, threatening, and in one case, ensorcelling the information they need out of various people.

Finally they heard from a dwarf, who’d heard from an elf, who’d once worked with a bunch of wizards who knew this gnome – with the unfortunate name of Greedo – who _claimed_ to be a regular visitor to Takodana. And with a few coins pressed into the correct palms, they’d managed to arrange a meeting.

The party has commandeered a high-topped wooden table in the back of a taproom called “The Jovial Jawa”, where they had booked rooms and have been hanging around for the better part of the afternoon, waiting for the gnome to show up.

Greedo’s credibility had gotten mixed reviews, but at this point he’s the most solid lead they’ve found and it would be foolish _not_ to at least speak to him.

Kylo slouches on a high stool, elbows propped on the rough table, black eyes scanning the crowd for any suspicious activity. They’ve been lucky thus far, but that luck will run out eventually and he has no plans to be caught off guard when it does.

Across the taproom, Gwenna is hustling a card game with Dayo acting as her backup.

To his right, Lo'an and Dom have gotten into a drinking contest that Dom is somehow losing, even though the halfling woman is half his size. Kira is to his left, holding a flagon of untouched ale and looking around the room with unabashed interest. Kylo’s brow furrows slightly as he watches her.

He’s just waiting for the charming and innocent act that the rest of the party seems to have wholly bought into to drop and for her true intentions to be revealed. He doesn’t trust the cleric as far as she could throw him and it’s only a matter of time before she fucks them all over. After all; there’s no such thing as a benevolent stalker.

As if sensing his scrutiny, the cleric turns her gaze on him and raises an eyebrow.

“Do you need something, Kylo?” she asks.

“Your gawking is drawing attention. Knock it off,” Kylo mutters, realizing that he’s been caught.

“Sorry, I can’t help it. Until I started following you guys, I’d never been anywhere except Niima.” She says, “Well, not that I remember, anyway.”

Something about her words catches on his thoughts like a stray scrap of fabric on a sharp thorn. Consciously or not, Kira is dropping hints that might aid him in truly figuring her out.

“What do you mean by that?” he asks, frowning.

“It’s… well. When I was pretty young – maybe five or six – I woke up on the steps of the Jedha temple with no idea how I’d gotten there and no memories of my life up to that point,” Kira sighs and looks down at the flagon in her hands. “The only possessions I had, besides the clothes on my back, were a note with the name Kira on it and this necklace.”

Kira shoves her gray cloak aside and reaches down the neck of her breastplate. Kylo can feel his eyes going wide and his cheeks beginning to burn for a reason he can’t quite articulate. He busies himself by gulping down half the water in his tankard. He never drinks alcohol, preferring not to give his enemies any sort of edge over him, though in this moment he’s sincerely wishing he had something a little stronger in his glass.

“Here,” Kira says, and he turns back to see that the half-elf is holding out a small, circular medallion, about the size of a large coin, on a long leather cord in his direction.

Kylo reaches out, almost without thinking, and takes the medallion from Kira’s fingers, leaning in a little closer to get a better look at it. The metal is warm from laying against her skin and he clears his throat, trying to refocus on what actually matters here.

Etched onto the golden circle are five, long, thin triangles, arrayed like an open fan, above a single large, squat triangle that points towards the top of the pendant. Words in a language that he can’t read encircle the whole design.

“Fascinating,” is what he means to say, before letting both the conversation and the pendant drop in order to go back to watching the crowd.

“What does this say?” He finds himself asking, instead.

Which is a disturbingly regular occurrence as of late. No matter how much he wants to keep Kira at arm’s length, he keeps slipping up, finding himself drawn in by her all the same. Starting conversations or keeping them going long after they’ve moved past exchanging crucial information.

It’s fucking irritating.

Beyond his suspicion, there’s another reason that he can’t stop obsessing over her, though he’s loathe to admit it, even in the privacy of his own thoughts.

It’s _bizarre_ to find himself in the company of one so devoted to the god who had abandoned him so many years ago. Trying to figure Kira out, to understand what it is about her that is _so_ much more worthy of Jedha’s attention than he had been, feels like the compulsion to keep picking at a scab, even once it begins to bleed.

“It’s in a very old dialect of Elvish,” Kira says, taking the medallion back so that she can look down at it. “Loosely translated, it says ‘The Blood of the Stars’.”

Something about those words pings in the back of Kylo’s mind, like a firecracker going off in the distance. He’s _certain_ that he’d heard them before, somewhere, a _long_ time ago, but he can’t place exactly where that was.

“– no clue what it means, but I used to pretend– well. Never mind,” Kira is saying as she tucks the necklace back beneath her armor.

“No, now you _gotta_ tell us,” interjects Lo'an, as she reaches across the table to yank Kira’s drink towards herself. “And I hope you don’t mind; you didn’t look like you were gonna drink it and I can’t let good ale go to waste.”

“Uh, sure. Help yourself,” Kira tells her, biting her lip to suppress a smile at the fact that the Hafling is already downing the drink before she finishes getting the words out. “And it really is silly. I just… I used to pretend that it was a clue my family had left for me. You know, to help me find them one day.”

Her face falls a little and she looks down at the warped and water-stained table top for a long moment.

“But I think,” she says, finally, “that if my family _is_ still out there, they must not care much what happened to me. After all, they left me in the middle of nowhere and never came back. So. Now I just wear it because I’ve _always_ worn it and it would feel very strange to take it off.”

Kylo feels something tighten in the back of his throat. The longing in her voice is so naked that even he can tell that her bravado is entirely a farce. He wants to say… _something_. But he doesn’t even know where to begin. After all, what does he know about familial love and loyalty?

“Don’t worry, Kira!” Lo'an says, interrupting Kylo’s train of thought, as she plasters herself to the cleric’s side in a drunken half-hug. “We’re your family now!”

Kira ducks her head to hide the way a pleased flush stains her cheeks. However, Kylo can still see the tips of her pointed ears turning red, where they poke out from her hair.

Which does something funny to his stomach.

His body has been acting quite strangely recently.

 _Maybe I’m getting sick,_ Kylo thinks, without much conviction.

He clears his throat again. This is unhelpful and pointless.

“Don’t worry, Kylo; we’re not replacing you! You’re family too, even though you keep pretending that you don’t want to be,” Lo'an says, reaching across the table to pat one of his hands.

“He- he’s just bein’ grumpy cause he’s paranoid,” Dom slurs, raising his head from where he’s been laying on the table.

Kylo glares at the wizard.

“It’s not paranoia if people are actually following you,” he growls. “Also you’re fucking drunk, so you don’t get an opinion here.”

“Party pooper,” Dom mumbles. “Our guy prolly isn’ even gonna show up-”

Which is precisely when the front door of the taproom slams open, revealing a panicked gnome wearing the bright green and gold vest they had been keeping an eye out for.

His eyes land on the members of the party seated at the table and he takes two steps through the open door in their direction, when a crossbow bolt strikes him in the back and he drops to the ground, dead as a doornail.

* * *

“Oh _god damnit_ ,” Finn says, covering his eyes, “that was the dude we were waiting for, wasn’t it?”

Poe smiles enigmatically and the warm overhead lighting gleams off of his pearly white teeth in a way that reminds Ben of a cartoon villain.

“You don’t know,” he says with a shrug. “Do you want to go find out?”

“Are there more arrows coming through the door? And can we tell who shot him?” Rey asks, frowning. She leans forwards to look at the tavern scene that Poe has constructed in miniature form on the table before them.

The warm skin of her arm brushes against Ben’s as she moves and it takes literally all of his willpower to keep from jumping out of his seat at the contact.

He manages to hold it together, but just barely.

 _You’re not a fucking teenager,_ he chastises himself, _get a damn grip._

They’re three hours into the game and things are going… well, they’re going.

His great plan of exacting revenge by way of snark and sarcasm, however had pretty much fallen apart the second she’d come through the door, looking like she’d walked right out of his fantasies in a white Joy Division t-shirt and a pair of cut-off shorts.

Rey had slid into the seat next to him, greeting him with a breezy “hi” and a polite smile and then proceeded to essentially ignore him when they weren’t in the middle of a scene, or combat.

Like she was the one who was putting up with _him._

Like _he_ was the problem and she was the one tolerating _his_ presence.

Like she hadn’t forced his hand and made _Ben_ agree to her terms.

Somehow that’s not the most irritating part of this whole situation though.

No, _that_ dubious honor is held by the fact that as the night wears on, Ben is beginning to realize that Rey actually isn’t that bad.

That she’s actually smart. And funny. And that her character is _perfectly_ designed to play off of his. Which means that as a good roleplayer who is actually fucking dedicated to playing the game correctly… he keeps finding himself jumping into scenes with her. And each time he does he finds himself enjoying it more and more. Even though she’s a self-professed roleplay novice, she’s easily one of the best character actors at the table and Kylo just _can’t_ stop talking to Kira.

This cursed realization dawns on him in slow motion, like a scene in a black and white horror film where the hero suddenly becomes aware that the villain is in the room.

And of course, alongside the realization comes the inevitable regret and remorse. The knowledge that maybe – if he had actually been just a _little_ more open to Rey joining the party – this could have been amazing.

 _How did I fuck this up_ this _badly?_ He wonders desperately. _And how the hell do I fix it?_

Ben shifts his jaw in frustration before downing half his bottle of water in one swig.

It would have been so much easier if he could have just kept on hating her.

_God damnit._

Rey brushes against him again as she leans back in her seat and Ben has to breathe through his nose for a few seconds.

 _The game,_ he reminds himself, _focus on the game. You’re in a bar. Some guy just got murdered. Pay attention. You can beat yourself up about this later._

“DM,” Ben says, “do I pick up anything with my Divine Sense?”

“What’s the radius on that?” Poe asks, as he looks over the map, mentally measuring the distance between the Kylo figurine and the lovingly detailed, miniature taproom door.

“Up to 60 ft,” Ben says.

“Kira lights up like a Christmas tree in your vision, glowing like a beacon of good, but that’s all you really get,” Poe says.

“Then Kylo is going to get to his feet and race towards the door, to see if he can see anything in the alley,” Ben says with a sigh.

“Is anyone going to get up and go investigate the dead gnome? The patrons who aren’t you, have all begun to scream and panic at this point, stampeding for the kitchen and back exit. You get the sense that while bar brawls are no big deal here, murder is not usually on the agenda. The Jovial Jawa is in utter chaos.”

“Yeah, the second Kira sees the gnome fall she’s going to go cast Revivify on him to bring him back,” Rey says.

“Oh, good thinking,” Hux replies, “Dom is going to go try to help Kylo, but he’s like super drunk so I think he has some trouble like… getting off the barstool.”

“God, I can’t believe we didn’t learn our lesson about letting Dom drink the last time this happened,” Finn groans.

Hux grins at him. “You did learn; the lesson was that drunk Dom likes a good fireball and a room full of velociraptors. And so do you.”

“We’re gonna fucking die,” Rose mutters, putting her face in her hands. “Or worse, get kicked out of this tavern, because our wizard can’t stop being a total murder hobo.”

The corners of Ben’s mouth twitch, the humor of the moment breaking through his foul mood.

“Friendly reminder to both Rose and Dom, but you guys are both considered drunk so roll everything at disadvantage. Dayo and Gwenna, what are you doing?” Poe asks.

“Question,” Phasma replies, “did the guys we were hustling leave their money behind when they ran for safety?”

Poe laughs. “As a matter of fact they did.”

“Great. I’m gonna sweep all of that into my pockets and then go back up Kylo,” she says.

“And I’m following Gwen,” Finn chimes in.

“Gwenna, you pick up twenty-four platinum, eight gold, and a silver ring with a huge chunk of black stone in it,” Poe says.

Ben’s eyes go wide.

“How much of the party’s funds did you wager to get the pot that big in the first place?” He demands, giving Phasma an incredulous look.

“Don’t worry about it,” she says with a smile.

“So Lo'an is gonna shout ‘Guys can we talk about Gwen’s gambling problem later? We’ve got bigger problems’,” Rose says.

“Gwenna will say that it’s only a problem if she loses, but she’s gonna draw two of her daggers as she gets to the door,” Phasma replies.

“Okay, so as Kylo, Gwenna, Lo'an, and Dayo get to the door, Kira gets to the gnome, and Dom manages to stand up after falling off of his stool, those of you at the doorway notice two things,” Poe says. “First: the taproom has completely emptied out. Even the barmaid has fled into the kitchen.”

He pauses for effect, looking around at the group.

“At least the civilian casualties will be minimal this time,” Hux mutters.

“And _second_ ,” Poe says, ignoring the interruption, “those of you who are looking out the door can see that the street outside of the taproom is deserted as well, save for five mysterious figures in matching, pure white robes, with hoods pull up over their heads and white porcelain masks over their faces. The one right in the center of the group is pointing a loaded crossbow directly at Dayo.”

“ _Me_?” Finn yelps, in surprise.

“You. And now I’m going to need everyone to roll initiative,” Poe says.

* * *

As soon as combat begins, all the masked assailants, save the one with the crossbow, withdraw musical instruments from beneath their robes and begin to play in unison. The song hums with power, and even Kylo can sense that this is a form of magic, drawing power from all the individuals involved to cast spells with far more power than any one of them would be capable of on their own.

Somehow, they have found themselves in a battle with a band.

A band of bards, to be specific. Which is terrible news, really.

They are all humanoids, and judging by their silhouettes, Kylo would be willing to lay Gwenna’s ill-gotten gold on the fact that they are a mix of humans and elves with a single dwarf.

“Hey!” Gwenna yells, indignant. “The fuck do you guys think you’re doing?”

The masked figure holding a harp strums a chord which causes the half-orc to stumble and clutch at the sides of her head with a yelp of pain.

“Stay out of our way! We only want the bard,” says the harpist, in a muffled voice.

Kylo takes advantage of this moment of distraction to swing his greatsword into his unprotected side.

The blow connects with a light armor chest plate hidden beneath the robes, and while the force of the blow causes the harpist to gasp with pain and falter in his playing, his fingers quickly resume their dance across the strings of his instrument and the spellsong goes on uninterrupted.

He could feel it, in the air, like a physical shield around the bard that had made his sword heavy and arms weak.

 _This is going to be a fucking problem,_ he thinks, noting out of the corner of his eye that the rest of his party seems to be having their own difficulties landing solid blows.

Enraged, Kylo focuses his will on the target before him and feels a surge of power roll down the blade, as he swings it into his foe once more. This time, the hidden armor gives way beneath the razor’s edge of the sword and blood blooms across the white robe. The combined force of the hit and Kylo’s smite tears a vicious wound in the harpist’s side.

The bard stumbles back, howling with pain. The spellsong stutters, but the other members of the band pick up the slack.

 _“Burn in the nine hells, infernal scum!”_ The bard roars, flecks of blood and spittle issuing forth from the mouth of his mask, along with a quick flash of light that smashes into Kylo’s chest and makes him feel like his heart is going to explode.

Across the now-empty street, Lo'an has transformed into a giant hyena and is snapping at the lute playing bard. Another masked figure is wailing on her haunch with a short sword in one hand while playing a flute with the other.

 _Fucking_ bards, Kylo snarls silently.

Dayo is throwing insults and streaks of brilliant magenta light in the direction of the crossbow wielder, who is returning fire with twanging shot after shot from their crossbow. A bolt lodges in Dayo’s thigh and the halfling gasps in pain.

Through the open door of the taproom, Kylo can see Kira, who has managed to revive the fallen gnome, channeling the golden light of her faith into powerful blasts that are holding the fifth bard at bay, in the street outside.

And then there’s Dom…

Who has once again summoned a stone box to use as a shelter, but not before absolutely _filling_ the street with wolves.

There are seven – perhaps eight – canines in total, though it’s hard to tell amidst the chaos, and the animals have gone into a frenzy, barking, howling, and snapping at the bards. They land a few hits, but mostly the animals are just a solid distraction and it’s their constant harrying of the masked assailants that finally causes the rhythm of the spellsong to break.

It’s not pretty or orderly, but the do seem to be winning, which is lifting Kylo’s spirits a little.

He has just enough time to think, ‘well this isn’t going so badly’ before the bard he is in melee with strums her fingers over the strings of her harp and casts a massive thunderwave down the street. It hits him squarely in the chest and Kylo finds himself knocked ass over tea kettle into a pile of garbage, head ringing like a bell.

The next time he actually manages to raise his head to survey the scene, the tide has shifted drastically.

Five of the wolves are smoking piles of fur on the ground, Dayo is scrambling to try and pick up his fallen lute, the flashes of light and crashing sounds from within the taproom seem to indicate that the bard had finally broken through Kira’s line and is now locked in combat with her, and Lo'an’s hyena form is limping and bloody.

With a flare of anger, Kylo notices that Greedo the gnome has slipped out of the taproom and is scampering off down the empty street, away from the danger. He doesn’t have long to worry about the loss of their mission target right now, though.

A dagger whistles across the field, embedding itself in the throat of the short-sword wielder on Lo'an’s flank and the figure drops to the ground with a choked-off scream.

“Get the fuck up, Kylo!” the rogue bellows, charging after the caster. “Why are you always sleeping on the job?”

“Fuck off, and watch your back!” He snaps in return.

A wild barrage of magic missiles sails out of the opening in Dom’s shelter, blasting several of the bards and leaving marks of soot and blood across their once-pristine robes.

Kylo hoists himself to his feet and sets his sights on the crossbow wielder. It’s difficult to tell, seeing as how their assailants are wearing no marks of rank, but he’d gotten the sense earlier that the archer was calling the shots, so to speak.

He crosses the cobblestones in two strides, swinging his greatsword down into his target, blade already crackling with the energy of a smite. The bard is distracted by Dayo and doesn’t even see Kylo coming until it’s too late to do anything. The greatsword cuts deep into his shoulder, breaking bone and severing tendons; the crackle of black energy only serves to make the wound deeper and more devastating.

The cry of agony that erupts from the bard’s thoat is almost an animal howl.

Kylo’s mouth draws back in a cruel grin as he rears back for another strike, this time, aiming to sever the head from the body.

“WAIT!” the bard cries desperately, holding up his single, still functional arm. His voice is ragged and distinctly masculine, though tight and high with pain. He lets the crossbow fall to the cobblestone street below, the nerveless fingers of his mutilated right arm no longer able to hold its weight. “Stop! Everyone stop! We surrender!”

 _It’s a trap,_ the dark whisper curls in the back of his head, like a black serpent shifting its coils, _if you don’t finish him off he’ll kill you._

Kylo shakes his head, faltering a little as he fights off the compulsion to plunge his blade into the heart of his terrified foe.

The voice falls silent, but he knows better than to think it’s gone. On his hip, the bladeless sword hilt that hangs there burns with frozen heat through his armor, urging him to cast aside Silencer, to take the hilt up instead, to ignite the burning blade and strike down his enemies, to –

Kylo shakes his head and re-adjusts his grasp on his longsword.

There’s a baleful presence that lingers at the edges of his consciousness, watching from the dark.

Around him, the battle screeches to a halt, even the crashing and shouting from within the taproom falling still.

“Don’t kill us,” the man pleads, “please. We yield.”

It _should_ feel like some sort of trap, the voice in his head was right about that, but Kylo is very familiar with the sound of true desperation and defeat. He’s fairly confident that for whatever reason, the archer is _actually_ surrendering.

Slowly, the other bards lower their instruments and weapons as well. Cautiously, weapons still drawn and guard on high alert for anything fishy, the party begins to close ranks around them. Kira, who has a split lip, but is otherwise unharmed, pushes her combatant – who looks much worse for wear – out the door of the taproom and into the street with the butt of her mace.

Something ugly flares in Kylo’s gut at the sight of the wound on her face. Which is weird because he _doesn’t trust her_. But. Until such a time as she shows her true nature, he supposes that she’s part of the Resistance and thus is under his protection as well.

And he does not like seeing _anyone_ lay hands on the people under his watch.

“Why shouldn’t we kill you all on the spot?” Dayo snaps, limping towards the leader with purpose. “You attacked our associate. You shot at us first–”

He points at the black bolt sticking out of his thigh.

“– _and_ you’re a bunch of assholes who play like shit!” He finishes.

“That’s rich, coming from a traitor and a hack like you,” the man spits, demeanor shifting completely, as he seems to forget that he’s swaying on his feet and slowly dying from blood loss, in the face of his sudden anger.

“I don’t know what your problem is, buddy, but you’ve got the wrong guy,” Dayo scoffs as he reaches up to yank the mask off of the man’s face.

The force of the tug causes the straps holding the mask in place to snap and the white porcelain face goes flying through the air to smash into the cobblestone, revealing a pale, blonde human with a pointed goatee and eyes filled with simmering rage.

Dayo’s eyes go wide as two saucers and he stumbles backwards, jaw falling open.

“Oh ‘Adedayo the Bold’,” the man says with a cough, before spitting a glob of blood out onto the cobblestones, “we both know that’s not true.”

* * *

“Oh no,” Finn whimpers, covering his face. “Is this who I think it is?”

“Oh yes,” Poe replies with a grin, “it’s backstory time!”

Finn lets out and inarticulate groan and buries his face in his arms.

“In the street – which is totally empty save for you lot – the bards who remain standing all push back their hoods and pull off their masks,” Poe continues, looking over at Finn, “and as you, Dayo, look around, you see the faces of your former comrades, the Troupe of Storm and Song.”

“Oh shit,” Rose whispers, turning to shake Finn’s shoulder, “aren’t these the war bards Dayo was with when Lo'an came to rescue him? The ones who basically stole his bard college degree and fucked him over?”

“His bardic seal, yeah,” Finn replies miserably.

“In front of Lo'an, you see a dark-haired elven woman holding a lute, Kira is standing behind a bald dwarf man with a huge brown beard and a set of panpipes, and Kylo, the harpist you were fighting pulls off her mask to reveal a drow woman with pale gray skin and short white hair. All of them are looking at you like you’ve just personally ruined their lives, Dayo,” Poe says.

Finn swallows loudly.

“The fifth and final member of the troupe, the flutist, is laying on the the ground, dead with one of Gwenna’s daggers in his neck, and as such, he hasn’t removed his mask. But Dayo, you’re pretty sure that’s TK, another human man. Do you say anything to your former comrades?”

“I–,” Finn pauses and swallows, “no. I think he just stands there gawking at uh… Bond was the leader, right? He never expected to see these guys again, so I think he’s in shock.”

“Yeah. Okay, so Dayo just stares at this guy without a word. What do the rest of you do?” Poe asks.

“Kylo is going to level his sword right under this Bond Guy’s throat and say ‘Explain, now’,” Ben says.

“Roll me an intimidation check, please,” Poe says.

“... twenty-seven,” Ben says.

“What the _fuck_ , Ben!” Hux cries, leaning around Phasma to try and see his dice. “Did you get mixed up and roll a percentile die instead of a D20? You can tell the difference because the percentile die has 100 sides and–”

Ben glares at him, trying to ignore his irritation at the snort of muffled laughter from Rey beside him.

“I have a fucking plus eight to my intimidation and I rolled a nineteen,” he snaps.

“Okay, settle down.” Poe says. “Anyway. Kylo has already nearly taken off one of his arms, so it really doesn’t take much to scare him. Bond looks up at you with legitimate terror in his eyes and says ‘Please don’t kill us. We’ll tell you whatever you want to know’. Then he tries to collect himself before saying, ’I am Bond, leader of the Troupe of Storm and Song. We were collecting the legally sanctioned bounty on the gnome known as Greedo by the will of our master and had your halfling friend not been here we would have had no reason for quarrel with you’.”

“Dom is going to call ‘What did Dayo do to you anyway?’ from inside of his bomb shelter,” Hux says, cupping his hands around his mouth to mimic the muffled sound of yelling from inside a stone box.

“He says ‘That man is a traitor and a thief’,” Poe replies, rolling his eyes at Hux’s antics.

“Dayo yells ‘Fuck you!’,” Finn says, raising his head to glare at Poe.

“‘I don’t hear you denying it’ Bond says,” Poe tilts his head, giving Finn a hauty, cold look.

Finn looks mutinous.

Rey shifts in her seat.

“Hey, uh, DM? I have two questions,” she says.

“What’s up?” Poe asks.

Ben hazards a glance in her direction and she’s doing that _thing_ with her lip again, holding it between her teeth as her eyes worriedly scan the scene on the table before them.

“First, can I use Revivify to revive the dead guy?” She asks.

“Sadly it’s been longer than a minute since he fell at this point, so you’d need to go to a temple to perform a real Resurrection ritual,” Poe says and Rey’s face falls. “What was the other question?”

She perks up a little again.

“Oh, uh, do we see or hear any uh… like city guards or anything? We did just have a big fight in the middle of the street…” Rey says, glancing around to meet the eyes of several of the other players, as if checking to make sure that she’s doing it right.

Poe grins and Ben feels a flash of irritation that he hadn’t thought of that before her.

“Make a perception check. Actually, I’ll let anyone who isn’t Dayo or Kylo make one. You guys are distracted by Bond. And Dom you’ll have to make your check at disadvantage because you're inside of your box and also still drunk,” he says.

There’s a pause for dice rolling and reporting of the results.

“Where’s my perception?” Rey whispers to herself, frowning as she looks over her character sheet.

“Perception is a skill, so it’s with your skills,” he says, words leaping out of his mouth before he can stop himself. It’s instinctive, a force of habit to demonstrate his Dungeons & Dragons superiority that he doesn’t even remember why it’s probably a bad idea for him to do it to _Rey_ until it’s too late.

Poe gives him a sharp look and Ben winces.

_Fuck._

“Second column, left side,” Ben mutters leaning over to point the stat out while a flush of shame sets his cheeks on fire.

“Thank you _ever_ so much,” she replies in a voice, dripping with sarcasm. “Poe, I got a fourteen.”

No one rolls particularly well, save Phasma, who gets a natural twenty.

“As a matter of fact, you do hear what sounds to be several different guard troops heading in your direction,” Poe says. “And with that roll, you also notice that from one of the windows in a taproom across the street, there’s a figure watching your group _very_ intently. Though the second you make eye contact, they duck out of sight.”

“Hmm, don’t like the sound of that,” says Phasma.

Poe remains irritatingly straight-faced.

“Do you want to stay here or do you guys want to take this hostage situation elsewhere?”

“The second one for sure, please,” Rose replies. “I’m not going back to jail!”

“Yeah, I’m in favor of getting out of here,” Phasma agrees. “Gwen’s gonna grab her dagger out of the dead guy before they leave, though.”

“Dom is going to break out of his shelter and ask ‘Where’d the gnome go? Should we bring him with us?’,” Hux says.

Rey shakes her head and makes an irritated face. “Kira will tell him, ‘the little coward ran off mid-fight’.”

“We can find the gnome later, but only if we escape now,” Rose says.

“Good point. Time to make our exit?” Hux replies, leaning back in his seat and making a ‘carry on’ motion with his hand.

“Grab the body,” Rey says, “Kira wouldn’t be down with leaving it in the middle of the street, even if there’s nothing to be done about him right now.”

“Gwenna will pick him up,” Phasma says, giving Rey a nod.

“Alright, so you guys collect the fallen corpse of TK, surround the troupe and begin hustling them off down an alley, away from the sounds of clomping hobnailed boots and clanking armor…”

* * *

They shepherd their captives through the back streets and winding alleys of Mos Eisley, out of the populated city center and towards the more secluded warehouse district where they had begun their initial search for clues two days before.

It takes some doing to keep from being caught by the roving bands of city guards, all searching for the perpetrators of the disruption that had threatened the safety (and commerce) of the city that evening. They have a few close calls, mostly because Kira is actually _terrible_ at sneaking through urban environments and they’re a large group carrying a _corpse_ , but by some miracle they manage to escape undetected.

 _Maybe Jedha is watching out for her,_ Kylo thinks bitterly, the third time she clatters into something at an inopportune moment, _there’s no fucking way she could have stayed hidden from us for so long_ without _divine intervention._

At last they find an empty, mostly derelict building that smells faintly of manure, indicating that at one point it had most likely served as a holding area for livestock. It’s not glamorous, but it’s well out of the way and unoccupied, which makes it a safe enough place to lay low for a while.

“We’re _so_ banned from that bar,” Lo'an laments quietly as they file inside.

“ _That’s_ what you’re worried about right now?” Kira asks incredulously, as she sets about casting basic healing spells on the troupe members so that they’re no longer in danger of bleeding out. She pays special attention to Bond’s shoulder, though there’s only so much she can see, burnt out as she is on magic and running low on true emergency medical supplies.

“Oh, no, I’m worried about lots of things, but that one is the least traumatic to think about right now.”

The druid turns with a sigh to look meaningfully at Dayo.

Gwenna lays the body of the fallen bard out in a corner and drapes a moth-eaten tarp over him.

“We’ll need to do something about him soon,” she says to Kira, “he’s going to start to smell soon.”

“I can cast Gentle Repose on him,” Dom says, surprising everyone.

“That’s awfully generous of you,” Gwenna says, raising an eyebrow, “I was actually unaware that you had learned any magic that did not benefit _you_ somehow.”

Dom rolls his eyes but strides over to the body, poking it with the end of his staff while muttering arcane words. A gentle shimmer engulfs the body and hovers there like a fine mist. Dom steps back, looking satisfied.

“Not having to smell rotting corpses while I’m trying to get my beauty sleep _does_ benefit me,” he says.

In the back of the room, Dayo lurks like a shadow, uncharacteristically silent.

Kylo turns his gaze away from the familiar scene of the wizard and rogue bickering with each other, and goes to join Lo’an in tying their four captives up, though at this point it seems like more of a formality than anything. Once the troupe had surrendered, they’d made no move to resume their murderous actions from before, seeming instead too defeated and demoralized to raise so much as a threatening finger, much less a blade.

“So,” Gwenna says after a minute, withdrawing one of her dagges from her belt and beginning to use it to pick her nails clean, “would anyone in the know care to explain what just happened back there?”

Her voice is mild, but there’s a hint of steely command in her tone.

Dayo heaves a massive sigh and turns to look at the tied up troupe.

“It’s a long story. But I used to be a member of their troupe. We trained together, played together, graduated from the same college together, and swore to be brothers and sisters in arms, to use our gifts to keep the world safe, to _protect_ the things we love,” he says, and even Kylo, emotionally closed off as he is, can hear the note of bitter anger in Dayo’s voice. “And I kept my oaths. Until they broke _theirs_ to me.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake; some bard you are. If you’re going to tell the story, why don’t you at least tell it right,” the dark-haired elf spits from her position on the floor.

Dayo’s eyes flick to meet her gaze.

“What story, Zerah? The story of how you took a contract with Lord Jango Fett, even though we agreed as a group to never take bounty hunting work and that’s the _only_ thing Fett ever hires for?” Dayo snaps, shaking off Lo'an’s hand and striding towards his former compatriots, “even though you tricked me into signing the contract? Even though you sold _my_ bardic seal to Fett without my permission?”

He reaches out and grabs Bond by the front of his robes, making the man grunt.

“I was homeless! Lo'an was homeless! I had to play the streets! Without a seal, no house or inn would hire me for honest work! You’re mad I stole from you? It was _thirty gold_! I’m fucking _livid_ you stole my whole career!” Dayo snarls with uncharacteristic savagery, “I should be the one trying to kill you!”

“Oh _poor_ you,” the dwarf says, speaking up for the first time since the confrontation began. “I hate to break it to you, but this little story you’ve been telling yourself is a lie. You have no idea what happened after you left us. Or the ruin you brought to us by doing so.”

“Shut up, Nines,” the drow woman hisses, glaring at the dwarf.

Bond shakes his head. “What’s the point of secrecy now, Slip?”

“We took the contract with Fett because we didn’t have a choice,” he says, heavily. “You remember what happened in Mandalore? Back when this one showed up to find you?”

Bond juts his chin in Lo'an’s direction, and the druid starts.

“Me? What is he talking about Dayo?” Lo'an asks, looking between Bond and Dayo.

“Lo,” Dayo, begins, turning to her with an _ocean_ of agonizing regret in his voice, “I– “

“When you came to find your precious _friend_ at the Senator of Mandalore's house, to warn him of some terrible danger that your clan had supposedly foreseen, you walked right into the middle of an assassination plot that we had been working to foil for _months_ ,” Slip says.

“So much for seeing the future,” Nines mutters, “when she couldn’t even see what was right in front of her.”

“And while your intrusion thankfully didn’t cost us the job,” Slip’s alabaster eyes pin Lo'an in place as though she’s the one in captivity, “it did get _you_ killed.”

* * *

The table _erupts_.

It’s the only word for it. They’re all on their feet, yelling, gasping, screaming, and generally _losing their minds_ at the latest twist. Ben’s eyebrows are nearly at his hairline and Rey can’t stop repeating “he can just _do_ that?” over and over again as though she’s caught in a loop.

“I _died_?” Rose shrieks, leaping to her feet. “What the fuck, Poe!”

“Hey, sometimes it happens!” Poe says, and Ben knows him well enough to see that he’s doing everything possible to hold back a smile. The smug shit.

“Everyone shut the hell up. Except you, Poe! And you too, Finn! Did you know about this?” Rose rounds on her boyfriend, outraged.

Finn cowers.

“Uh… maybe?” He replies in a tiny voice.

Rose makes an unintelligible sound and throws her hands in the air.

“Oh my god! I thought I could trust you!” She howls. “Some boyfriend you are! Couch! Forever!”

Hux snickers and Phasma elbows him in the side.

“Okay, okay, everyone settle down,” Poe says, “or we’re stopping here for the night.”

That shuts everyone right up.

* * *

“The thing about resurrection spells is that they cost a lot of money,” Bond says. “And back then, we didn’t have a lot of money. But that didn’t matter. Because Dayo here was part of the Troupe. One of us, loyal to our shared goals. And so we took the _only_ contract that offered us enough money to pay for a diamond big enough to bring you back to life.”

“What are they talking about, Dayo?” Lo'an asks. Her fists are clenched tight and there’s a high whine of panic in her voice. “You told me there had been an accident, that I just got knocked out … Do you mean to tell me that all this time… that you… that…”

“Lo…” Dayo says, starting towards her, but the druid holds up a hand to stop him.

“I _died_. I died and you _didn’t tell me_ ,” she says, staring at the bard with eyes filled with betrayal and sorrow. “Why don’t I remember?”

“Side effect of the resurrection. Memory loss is a bitch,” Slip says, “you probably just thought you’d had too much to drink the night before.”

Dayo hangs his head.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“I’m gonna throw up,” Lo'an says, before bolting outside into the darkness. Gwenna follows silently after her.

“We did what we had to, Dayo,” Nines says, “when she died… you just shut down. And we were loyal to you because we thought you’d be loyal to us, too. You didn’t even ask where the money came from, even though you _knew_ that we didn’t have that kind of coin in our pockets. But once she was all better and you learned who we were working for next, suddenly you had standards again.”

Dayo stands, frozen, unable to speak and Kylo feels the strangest throb of sympathy for the hafling. He’s had his own impossible choices in his time. And he too has wondered if the ones he’d made had been correct.

“Anyone else wish they had some popcorn?” Dom mutters.

“Shh!” Kira says, smacking the wizard’s arm.

“So, you took your little friend and ran, and you left us to the tender mercy of Jango Fett, whose contract had stipulated that he was paying 1,200 gold for a troupe of _six_ war bards. Not five. And wouldn’t you just know that he had a nice clause in the contract that only activated in the event that one of the bards he hired decided to _desert their duty_ …” Zerah says, giving Dayo a humorless smile.

Understanding dawns on Kylo with sudden sharpness.

“He owns the rest of you indefinitely now, doesn’t he,” he says. “He had a Traitor’s Bane clause.”

“Your red friend understands how this world works,” Bond says, bitterly. “Fett will own our seals until we bring him Dayo’s head in payment. So when we heard that by some miracle, you were asking after the very bounty we were tracking… well. Who were we to deny the gifts of the gods?”

There’s a rustling noise and the creak of the half-rotten door to the warehouse opening and shutting as Lo'an and Gwenna enter the building once more.

“How– uh how are you feeling?” Dayo asks uncertainly, as he turns to regard the women.

“Like my best friend has been keeping the worst secret in the multiverse from me for almost four years,” Lo'an says grimly, swiping at her mouth with the back of her hand. Gwenna rests one massive hand on Lo'an’s shoulder and the halfling leans back against her partner’s tree-trunk of a thigh.

Dayo’s head falls once more.

“But I think that’s a conversation for a later time, because I was listening to everything these guys were saying through the walls – which aren’t great, by the way, so maybe we should stop discussing all our secrets quite so loudly,” Lo'an says. “That being said, I got an idea.”

“Gonna finish ruining our lives like you’ve been doing since we saved yours in Mandalore?” Zerah sneers.

Lo'an raises her head high and looks down her nose at the elf.

“No,” she says, “we’re going to wipe this whole slate clean.”

“So you just want to kill them?” Kylo asks.

Lo'an turns her gaze on the group.

“No. We’re going to free them from Jango Fett,” she says, then looks back over her shoulder at the troupe. “And then once they’re free, I want them to disappear and _never_ come near _any_ of us ever again. Or else we _will_ kill them. ”

Silence fills the room as she finishes speaking.

Kira steps forward, hesitantly, taking Lo'an’s hands in her own.

“Listen,” she begins, “I know you’ve had quite a shock but… How would we even do this? We definitely don’t have the money to buy their freedom and I doubt someone like that just going to let them go if we ask nicely.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Kira; _no one_ has that kind of money,” Dom says with a huff, “you’d have to kill him to get him to let go of a contract this valuable. And we’re strong, but we’re not _that_ strong. Fett is powerful. And _dangerous_.”

“No, actually, she might be onto something here. Fett’s _name_ is powerful. His employees and hirelings are powerful. He’s an evil bastard, but he’s just one guy and he doesn’t know a shred of magic. If we can get him alone, we can handle him,” Dayo chimes in, actually sounding hopeful for the first time since the conversation began.

His face falls slightly as he glances between Lo'an and the Troupe.

“Though, if we do this, we’ve gotta put our plans to locate Takodana on hold for a while. We okay with that?”

“No; we’ve already lost too much time as it is,” Kylo snaps, at the same time that Bond says, “Takodana? Now _this_ is interesting.”

“What did you just say?” Gwenna asks, arching an eyebrow at their captive.

“I said this is interesting that you’re now looking for Fett _and_ Takodana,” Bond drawls. “Truly, the gods do have an odd sense of humor.”

The party exchanges wary looks.

“Your point being?” Gwenna asks.

“Lucky for you, we happen to know where _both_ of those things are located,” Bond says, with a smirk. “We’ll tell you where to find Fett, and if you actually make good on getting us out of our contract, I’ll draw you a map to the heart of Takodana itself.”

* * *

“Oh my god, Poe that was _crazy_ ,” Finn is saying as they all pack away their books and papers, collect loose dice from the rolling trays and toss their bottles and cans into the recycling bin.

“Yeah, that was the best session we’ve had in a _long_ time,” Phasma agrees.

Rose shakes her head.

“I still can’t believe I _died_ and didn’t even know,” she says. “You’re both lucky the holidays passed just recently or you’d _both_ be getting coal from me.”

“Don’t leave me Rose,” Finn begs, grabbing her hands, “I need you! You’re my ride home!”

Ben watches their antics out of the corner of his eye and sighs.

His friends aren’t wrong; it _had_ been an incredible session. Action and intrigue and backstory bombs the likes of which only Poe could deliver to such magnificent effect. And Ben had definitely felt the usual pull to let go and get caught up in the flow of the game.

But the whole time, as he’d been trying his hardest to dive all the way into Kylo and leave reality far behind, he’d been unable to really do so, because he couldn’t ignore the fact that _Rey_ was sitting there, hating him. He feels like a fly, caught in a spiderweb, getting more and more caught up in the sticky threads the harder he struggles against them.

“Sorry I let Greedo get away,” Rey says, apologetically, in response to a change in conversation topic that Ben had completely missed due to his brooding. “I can’t believe I rolled a natural one on my perception check. I think the dice hate me.”

“Sure seems that way,” Ben says, and even to his own ears, his tone is wrong; too harsh, not enough humor.

His intention had been commiseration. Maybe an attempt at light blame dismissal. But no. Because he’s a _fucking idiot_ _who doesn’t understand how to talk to people without putting his entire foot directly into his mouth_ , he’s gone and done the opposite.

Again.

“Excuse me?” Rey says, eyebrows raising as she turns to face him fully.

Ben swallows, fighting the urge to bang his head into the table, and tries to figure out how to salvage this mess.

 

He feels like he’s about five seconds from snapping. No matter what he does he just keeps fucking up.

It’s like every time he tries to do _anything_ other than be an ass tonight, he rolls a natural one.

 _Ben Solo, critical failure,_ he thinks with an edge of hysteria. Something snaps inside of him – possibly his last tether to sanity – and he finds himself consumed with desperation. He’s fucking _trying_ here. It’s more than he’s done for _anyone_ in a long time and it’s not his fault that he can’t seem to get it right.

 _Why can’t you see that?_ Ben wants to scream. Though that, he suspects, would have the opposite effect he desires.

Instead, under the guise of picking up the pen Finn had forgotten at his spot, Ben leans into Rey’s space and says, in his _most controlled_ voice, “I promise I’m not trying to be a dick.”

He’s misjudged the distance though, and like this, he’s practically looming over her, crowding her back. His lips are nearly brushing the shell of her ear. A strand of her hair tickles his nose. Rey is wildflowers and citrus in the summer sun. He’s struck by a sudden feeling of vertigo. Ben can hear her sharp intake of breath and as he draws back to a safer position he can see that her entire body is drawn taught like a bowstring and her face is a mask of shock.

Then her expression darkens and she jerks away from him, lips curled into a sneer.

“I guess it just comes naturally for you then, doesn’t it,” she hisses through clenched teeth, before shoving all of her gear into her bag and storming out of the house without so much as another word.

Ben opens his mouth to say something but for the first time that evening, his mouth doesn’t have anything to contribute to the conversation, for better or worse. He runs a hand through his hair, shoving it back off of his forehead and shifts his jaw in irritation.

When he turns back, to finish packing up his own shit so that he can go wallow in his own misery, Poe is staring at him with raised eyebrows.

And Ben just kind of… _cracks_.

 _Nothing_ has gone right. It’s live everything he tries has the exact opposite effect he wants it to.

Ben is totally in over his head and he has _no fucking clue_ what to do about it.

“Poe,” he says, beating down his own defensive impulse to simply run away from his problems, “I think I fucked up.”

Poe rolls his eyes into the next millennium.

“Buddy,” he replies with a sigh, “that’s putting it mildly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: Rey and Ben have a “heart to heart”. The Resistance plans a heist.
> 
> Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated and encourage me to write faster!
> 
> If you’d like to support my work (or just want to yell at me about this story), you can do so on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/commandercait), [CuriousCat](https://curiouscat.me/commandercait), or [Tumblr](http://commandercait.tumblr.com) (even though I’m really not using it much since they’ve decided to set their whole platform on fire).


	4. A Bard Day’s Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys. I’m so sorry. I promise I didn’t forget about this story or you; I‘ve just been having a really hard time lately and my desire to write peaced out a few months ago and refused to come back until recently. Here’s chapter 4; I hope it’s worth the wait!
> 
> ALSO I’M POSTING THIS IN BETWEEN WAVES OF EARTHQUAKES IN LA SO JUST LET IT BE KNOWN THAT IF I DIE, I DID SO DOING WHAT I LOVED: BEING A BIG NERD.
> 
> All my love to my INCREDIBLE beta team: [cyborgharpy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyborgharpy), [VioletWilson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/violetwilson), and [LoveofEscapism](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveofEscapism) for helping me turn this fic into something readable and holding my hand while I panicked about everything. They seriously do so much and I love them with ALL MY HEART. (Also I got to hug Violet when she came to LA and it was great.)
> 
> The incredible Trixie_Ren/TourmalineGreen who is the greatest friend and the kindest sould commissioned two INCREDIBLE PIECES OF ART for this fic by the incomprable Selunchen! Please go check them out because I’m STILL crying about how much I adore them. [Kira](https://twitter.com/Trixie_Ren/status/1133450636362543104) and [Kylo](https://twitter.com/Trixie_Ren/status/1133450890453479424)!  
> Please don’t forget to tag me if you make something cool related to this story so I can share it in the next chapter!!!

The first thing Rey does when she gets home is hop on her computer and Google Ben Solo.

She had spent the entire drive back from Poe’s house fuming and turning their last exchange over and over in her head, but no matter which way she flipped it, she just couldn’t make sense of his erratic behavior.

First, he’d ignored her, then he’d practically glued his character to Kira’s side, _then_ he’d begun insulting and belittling her, and then, _then!_ Last, but not even remotely least, he’d had the gall to try _gaslighting_ her about the whole thing.

Like she’s really stupid enough to believe that it isn’t all part of some kind of twisted head game he’s playing.

She’s half tempted to write Ben off as a petty, entitled, manchild. To declare him and any possibility of peace between them a lost cause and to make good on her threat to post screenshots of all his asshole texts in the D&D group chat.

But uncertainty stays her hand.

While Finn and Rose would certainly side with her, Rey isn’t sure whose side Poe, Hux, or Phasma would take. After all, they’ve known Ben far longer and their loyalty to him could run far deeper than Rey knows.

In reality, were she to issue an “it’s me or him” ultimatum, it could easily backfire.

Which would land her back at square one, with no new friends and a lot of extra drama.

Rey feels like Ben has backed her into a corner.

She’s tried being nice. She’s tried turning the other cheek. She’s tried ignoring him. She’s tried _blackmailing_ him and it just doesn’t matter. Ben’s only goal seems to be fucking with her, every chance he gets.

And Rey is officially over it.

 _If he wants a fight, he’ll bloody well get one,_ she thinks grimly.

So she types Ben Solo’s name into the search bar and hits enter.

She’s not sure what she was expecting. A wikipedia page, perhaps. Maybe an IMDB link. Some standard, over dramatic headshots.

That is _not_ what she finds.

The first page of results is filled with news articles, family photos, box office numbers, fan sites, petitions to have him banned from the internet, the country and/or the planet.

And tabloid articles. So very, _very_ many tabloid articles. With titles that make her suck in a breath like someone has punched her in the stomach, hard.

 _This is… ugly,_ is all that Rey can think as her eyes scan the page. She feels like she’s snooping through something private. Yes, it’s all publicly available… but it really _shouldn’t_ be.

> _**‘Actress Leia Organa on Son Ben Solo’s Troubled Childhood: “We Did Everything We Could”’** _
> 
> **_‘Ben Solo, is “Out of Control” in The Wake of Parent’s Split Says Exclusive Inside Source’_ **
> 
> **_‘Actors Han and Ben Solo Clinging to Life After Drug-Fueled Car Crash’_ **
> 
> **_‘Fresh Out Of Rehab, Ben Solo Lashes Out: Leave Me the F*** Alone’_ **

The accompanying image results are a dizzying mix of press photos, movie posters, and pictures of a wrecked silver sports car.

Of blood splattered across the broken glass.

Of Ben with bruises under his eyes and stitches holding his face together.

And if the news media is bad, social media is somehow _worse._

> _**Moden Canady – @modcan** _
> 
> How does the son of legends like Han Solo and Leia Organa fall so hard? Goes to show how unfair life is: most would kill for what @BenSolo threw away.
> 
> _**Not A Bot – @BB9E** _
> 
> Replying to @modcan @BenSolo
> 
> _If he hadn’t decided that he needed to quit acting to become king of the edgelords maybe his life wouldn’t have gone to shit so fast_
> 
> _**Suday Bascus – @justbascus** _
> 
> _Hey @BenSolo too bad you didn’t bite it after all, the last Son of Darkness was so bad you deserve to die for that alone._

Rey’s heart pounds and her mouth goes dry, as she clicks rapidly away from Twitter, then exits her browser altogether, feeling very much like she’s just been caught looking at something obscene.

She’d been hoping to find a _Hollywood Reporter_ article that said he was a rich brat whose parents had spoiled him and who had never wanted for anything. Maybe a _Buzzfeed_ listicle of his top ten most unflattering photos.

 _This_ was not what she wanted. This wasn’t research… it was digging through Ben’s digital rubbish bins, looking for all his darkest secrets.

Thought of using any of the things she’s found here as a weapon makes Rey feel _dirty_. Her skin crawls and she really wishes that she could just go back to her former state of blissful ignorance. Where she could think of Ben as a worthless piece of shit.

Not a sad, broken person, whose life is defined by his failings.

She’s still angry that he’s been such an asshole to her, but it really might not be as personal as she assumed.

With all of this just _laying around_ for anyone to find, it is no wonder that he operates under the assumption that no one could ever give him the benefit of the doubt.

 _This is what I get for steering clear of gossip rags,_ she thinks ruefully, trying to knead away the headache behind her eyes with the heels of her palms.

Rey should have looked him up after the first game. Should have stuck around and asked Poe more questions. Should have called Finn or Rose and demanded to know what redeeming qualities Ben Solo possessed that made them count him amongst their friends when he was so clearly a raging asshole. And _also,_ how they could have kept something like this a secret from her for all this time.

But she hadn’t. And now her perfect opportunity to see her old friends regularly and to actually make some _new_ friends in this lonely, overwhelming city, is being poisoned by the animosity between her and Ben.

Ben who has been there longer.

Ben who has been through hell.

Rey pushes back from her desk, chair rolling across the ageing wood floor of her two-room casita.

“Bollocks,” she says into the darkness, wondering how she’d managed to get herself into _this_ mess. And how on earth she’s meant to get out of it.

* * *

Rey’s next move is to text Finn and Rose. She waits until morning because she’s not an animal, but she sleeps fitfully and dreams about Kylo hunting Kira through a forest, screaming at her that she has no place in their story.

When she snaps awake just before 7AM. She practically dives for her phone.

> _**To: Bestie Squad** _
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _when u first met ben was he as awful to u as he is to me?_

It’s about half an hour before anyone responds, and Rey uses the time to make herself some coffee and water her plants. Finn’s text notification sends her phone buzzing across the white tiles of her kitchen counter.

> _**From: Finn Gunner** _
> 
> _He wasn’t QUITE that bad, but he was still kind of a dick._
> 
> _**From: Rose Tico** _
> 
> _It took him about a month to warm up to us, but he was mostly just grouchy, not actively antagonistic like he is with you_
> 
> _**From: Finn Gunner** _
> 
> _Why?_

Rey bites her lip trying to figure out how to phrase her next statement, then remembers who she’s talking to and decides to dispense with all pretenses.

> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _i googled him last night_
> 
> _**From: Rose Tico** _
> 
> _Wait…_
> 
> _**From: Rose Tico** _
> 
> _Like for the FIRST time????_ 😱
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _yeah_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _probably should have done that earlier tbh_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _is what I read about him true?_
> 
> _**From: Finn Gunner** _
> 
> _Honestly for this stuff you really should ask Poe (or Hux or Phas) because they’ll know more._
> 
> _**From: Finn Gunner** _
> 
> _But I can tell you that before we started playing, Poe told us that no matter what we’d heard about him, we didn’t know the whole story._
> 
> _**From: Rose Tico** _
> 
> _TBH we don’t really talk about anything besides DnD with him so we really don’t know much more than you do ☹️_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _i see_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _thanks guys_ 🧡
> 
> _**From: Finn Gunner** _
> 
> _NP Peanut! I just hope he chills out soon._ 🧡
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _BIG MOOD_ 😤😤😤

Rey sighs and clicks over to her private text chain with Poe, walking over towards her worn, sage green sofa as she does so. She plops down onto the couch, sinking into the too-soft cushions with a _thump_.

> _**To: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _hey poe can we talk about ben?_
> 
> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _Poe is peeing. This is Hux._
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _o sorry ill try again later_
> 
> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _No, wait, come back. Talking shit about Ben Solo is one of my top 10 favorite morning activities. What do you want to know?_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _…_

Rey hesitates. On one hand, she needs information about Ben and she needs it _now_ before she drives herself insane theorizing on her own. On the other… Hux is… well. He’s _Hux_.

She’s not certain how factual his information will actually be. Hux has proven himself a dedicated agent of chaos more times than she can count over the course of their short acquaintance. However, Finn _had_ listed him as a viable source of Ben Solo related facts.

“Can’t hurt to see what he says,” she mutters.

After all, if Hux says anything _too_ outlandish, she’s sure that Poe will issue a correction as soon as he regains control of his phone.

> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _i dont really want to talk shit i just have some questions about why hes_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _u know_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _like THAT_
> 
> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _You mean an asshole?_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _… i mean yeah i guess_
> 
> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _Well when a mommy movie star with a psycho dad and a daddy movie star with a drinking problem get together sometimes they make a baby movie star who spends more time in front of cameras than with actual humans and never learns how to be a real boy._

Rey remembers a photo she’d seen the night before of Ben as a tiny child with his big ears sticking out from beneath a too-short bowl cut. He’d been sitting on a wooden box on the set of the sitcom, _JJ Knows Best_ – that had launched his career at the tender age of three – hugging a slate as if it was a stuffed animal and looking lost.

Her heart twinges in her chest. She’s no stranger to the feeling of being abandoned, set aside by parents who found other things more interesting than raising their own child. Sure, his family had remained _physically_ in his life, but they’d left him on his own all the same.

> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _Oh and then sometimes that baby movie star spends his whole life trying to get his parents attention and discovers that the only things that REALLY do the trick are throwing tantrums like grandpa and developing a drinking problem like daddy._

Oh, Rey thinks, pieces of Ben’s story beginning to connect, like a complex puzzle coming together before her eyes.

The image is _not_ pretty.

She’s no stranger to the road to self destruction either.

Her parents had traveled it and many of the older children she’d seen in the British foster system had been headed down that road too. Had her great Uncle Obi not found her and brought her to live with him in the US when she was ten, that might have been Rey’s fate as well.

> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _And then sometimes the baby movie star SNAPS andasfsadgheeeeeeeeeeeee_

Rey blinks in confusion at the bizarre message.

> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _Hi Rey, this is Poe, sorry about Hux._
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _its ok_
> 
> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _So you guys were talking about Ben, huh?_

With some effort, Rey tucks her legs up underneath her body before replying.

> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _we were_
> 
> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _Is this about what happened at the end of the game?_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _yeah kind of_
> 
> _**From Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _im just trying to make sense of him tbh_
> 
> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _Good luck with that! I’ve been trying since we were kids and he’s STILL a mystery._ 😂
> 
> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _In all seriousness though, I think you guys actually need to sit down and talk._

Rey balks at that suggestion. Ben is bad enough when the group is watching; she’s not eager to find out how much worse he can be when left unsupervised.

> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _no offense poe but not in a million years_ 😐
> 
> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _No, really. I’m insisting both as your DM AND your friend. Ben was here until almost 2 last night whining because he’s been an asshole and doesn’t know how to say sorry._
> 
> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _And I’d like to take this opportunity to tell you what I told him: I am only your referee IN THE GAME._
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _sorry_ 😞

Guilt at dragging Poe into what has clearly become a very fraught and awkward situation makes her wince. Then her brain actually catches up to what Poe’s previous text says and she blinks several times, feeling like surely she’s misreading things.

> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> wait he feels BAD????? for real??
> 
> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _Listen, I’m sorry he’s been so rude to you. It’s not okay and I do not condone his behavior at my table._
> 
> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _THAT BEING SAID: I cannot fix this. You guys need to work this out yourselves. By TALKING._
> 
> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _To each other. Not to me._
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> right sorry
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> ill think about it
> 
> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> Great.
> 
> _**From: Poe Dameron** _
> 
> _Anyway, I’m gonna go kill Hux for breaking into my phone again, let me know if you need anything! Also check discord! I sent you some stuff to look at for Kira’s backstory._
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> thanks poe will do

Rey sets her phone down and leans her head against the backrest of her couch.

Somehow the more she learns about Ben, the less she understands.

Had he really felt enough remorse for his behavior to go to Poe about it, or was their DM simply trying to push them to talk in hopes of creating greater harmony at his table?

Feeling more conflicted than ever, Rey decides to head out back to her studio in the garage behind her casita. It’s _just_ big enough to fit all of her tools, supplies, and the massive work table that she’d assembled mostly from discarded IKEA furniture, but it suits her well.

As she enters her studio and flips on the light switches, she is greeted by the familiar glow of the countless works of neon art on display in the room.

Rey blows out a breath, trying to clear her mind of anything save the task at hand.

It sort of works. She _just_ manages to lose herself in the process of heating the glass pipes and bending them to shape when a text appears on her phone, snapping her right back into reality.

> _**From: Ben Solo** _
> 
> Hey. Can we talk?

* * *

Rey doesn’t _love_ the idea of having Ben at her place, but he’d been adamantly opposed to meeting anywhere public. If she had not _just_ become uncomfortably aware of the very real cause of his paranoia, she might have taken his insistence on privacy as a guarantee that he was going to murder her.

As is, she’s still not _entirely_ certain she can rule out that possibility. Just to be safe, she sends Finn a quick message.

> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> if i go missing ben solo did it
> 
> _**From: Finn Gunner** _
> 
> WHAT?!!?!?
> 
> _**From: Finn Gunner** _
> 
> WHAT ARE YOU DOING PEANUT?

Ben had offered his house up as a conversation venue as well, but Rey had flat out refused that. If this had to be somewhere without witnesses, it was going to happen in a space where she can reliably use 99% of the objects within arm’s reach as makeshift weapons if push comes to shove.

If Ben is allowed to be paranoid, then so is she.

After all, Rey’s no fool; she hasn’t survived this long by giving people the benefit of the doubt.

There’s a rumble of an engine in the distance that grows louder and louder until it abruptly cuts off right outside the bay door of her studio. There’s a pause, then the sound of boots crunching in the gravel of the path, and finally, a hesitant knock on the smaller, pedestrian door on the right side of the building.

Straightening her shoulders and making a note of where she’s stashed her large metal wire-cutters – _just in case_ – Rey goes to greet her guest.

The door swings open and Ben’s silhouette fills her vision. She’s struck once again by just how _large_ he is.

Her eyes adjust to the bright afternoon sunlight and Rey finds herself looking up into his drawn, pale face. There’s a shiny black motorcycle helmet tucked under one arm and he’s wearing a heavy, leather jacket. Ben would look dangerous, if he didn’t _also_ look like he was about five seconds from bolting.

“Do you want to come in?” she asks finally, stepping back to allow him passage, as the silence stretches between them to the point that it’s unbearable.

“Yeah, uh, thanks,” Ben says, before he sort of edges sideways into the interior of the space, as though he’s half-afraid that he won’t be able to fit through the door like a normal person. She closes it behind him, more for practicality’s sake than because she really wants to be in an enclosed space with him; it’s chilly this time of year and she’s got her space heater running.

Once inside, Ben turns his head, slowly taking in the dizzying array of neon lights and signs blinking and twinkling from the walls.

“Did you make all of these?” he asks, leaning in to inspect the bright blue starship, whose white contrails wind around a spire of scrap metal that she’d welded together.

“Yep,” Rey replies tersely, retreating further into the center of the studio.

Ben straightens once more, eyes still scanning the room as though he’s cataloguing each and every piece for later reference. Were he anyone else, Rey might call the look on his face admiration or respect. On Ben, it could mean anything.

 _Maybe he’s hungry. Or bored,_ she thinks, _the man is a mystery._

Rey crosses her arms over her chest, suddenly feeling more exposed than she had initially predicted.

Earlier, when she’d suggested it as their meeting location, her studio had seemed like a safer call than her actual home… but… the sheer amount of her heart and soul that is on display here suddenly makes her uncomfortable and self-conscious.

“You said you wanted to talk,” Rey says, and she tries to keep the defensive edge out of her voice, but she’s not sure that she fully succeeds.

“I did,” Ben says, eyes finally sliding over to meet hers. “I do.”

“So talk,” she replies.

He swallows, adam’s apple bobbing. The tension mounts in the room and every second that ticks by feels like it takes a thousand years. Rey is going to die of old age before he says _anything_.

“I’m… fuck. Okay. I’m sorry,” he begins, finally, looking down at his shoes. Black Doc Martens, old and scuffed with wear. They glow purple at the edges in the light of the studio. “I’ve been a total asshole to you.”

He pauses, glancing back up to her face, then clears his throat and continues, when Rey makes no move to interrupt him.

“It’s a problem I have. Have always had,” Ben says, the words coming out of him in a bass rumble, like groundwater welling to the surface from somewhere very far below the earth. “I’m a dick. And I’ve been trying to be better about it, but… I wasn’t. Better about it. With you.”

Rey breathes in deeply, letting his words settle over her, weighing them for honesty.

Ben sounds sincere and he certainly looks like this admission is costing him dearly.

“You were _awful_ to me,” she says, after a moment, and maybe it’s just that his vulnerability is calling to her own, but there’s a lot more honest pain and upset in her voice than she meant to give away. “Why did you treat me like that if you were just going to turn around and apologize? It doesn’t make sense. _You_ don’t make sense.”

Ben’s shoulders hunch a little and his jaw works unhappily.

“I know. I- I wasn’t handling my issues and you got caught in the crossfire.” His gaze meets hers again, face lit blue and red, eyes dark and lost. “All I can do is apologize and try to do better.”

She sighs and lets her arms fall away from her chest.

“If I keep playing are you going to keep being a prick?” Rey asks.

Ben tilts his head, frowning at her slightly.

“No,” he says, then grimaces, “well, not on purpose anyway.”

Rey shakes her head.

“Here’s the thing,” she says firmly, setting her hands on her hips, and raising her chin. “I don’t want to keep this up if you’re just going to spend the rest of the campaign cycling between resenting me and apologizing depending on what sort of mood you’re in. I was really _really_ excited about this game. I was even excited to meet you, before I had any idea who you were. I was just happy to _finally_ be making some friends in this stupid city.”

She shrugs a little.

“I’m not so desperate for friends that hanging out with someone who hates me is a better option than being alone.”

Ben looks _poleaxed_. He stares at her, mouth slightly ajar, eyes wide for so long that it starts to feel a little like they’ve both been frozen in place. Then his jaw clicks shut.

“I don’t,” he says.

Rey frowns at him.

“You don’t _what_?” she asks, frustrated.

Ben shoves a hand through his hair.

“I don’t hate you.”

“Since _when_?” Rey demands, eyes widening in incredulity.

“Since ever. I was just being stupid. Sorry,” he says. “Just… don’t quit… Poe really likes having you at the table. And so do I.”

He looks a little surprised, like the last words had leapt out of his mouth without his permission.

Rey’s eyebrows shoot all the way to her hairline.

“You’ve got a funny way of showing it,” she says, feeling unsteady on her feet, like the gravitational axis of the earth has tilted slightly below her and she’s on the verge of sliding sideways into chaos.

It’s hard to tell because of the lighting, but she thinks that Ben’s cheeks and ears have darkened with a flush.

“I know. I’ve got issues. But I do,” he says. “And I know you have no reason to trust me, but if you stick around then I promise I’ll do better.”

Rey’s heart skips a beat.

“Are we… good?” Ben asks, with a look that is one part abject embarrassment, one part tentative hope, and like seventeen parts pure panic. It’s crazy, _completely insane_ , but in this moment, for the very first time, Rey feels like _maybe_ she sort of understands him.

She thinks about the photo of baby Ben, alone on a soundstage. The photo of him when his scar was a fresh wound. She looks at the flawed, nervous man before her, shifting his weight awkwardly back and forth from leg to leg as he waits for judgment to be delivered upon him.

And it’s not that Rey suddenly forgives Ben for all his sins against her, more that she is suddenly very tired of being mad at him. The bubble of self-righteous anger that she’s been holding tight in her chest for the last two weeks suddenly pops and she’s just _done_ with it.

She exhales, closes her eyes, then reopens them to meet Ben’s across the room.

“I don’t know if we’re good yet,” she says, “but this is certainly a start.”

It’s like a plug has been pulled and all the tension that has been holding Ben’s massive frame rigid since he arrives is suddenly gone. He almost sags a little.

“Okay,” he says, then swallows, “that’s fair.”

They stare at each other for a while longer, both of them seemingly unsure of how to proceed.

Of course, because they’re both on the same dysfunctional, awkward wavelength apparently, when they do speak again, it’s at the exact same time.

“Good chat, ” she says.

“I should… go,” he mutters.

They both break off, suddenly finding it of _utmost_ importance to stare at random bits of the studio, while clearing their throats.

“Okay, I guess I’ll leave you to it,” Ben says after a minute.

Rey nods, eyes fixed on a weird stain she’s just noticed on the floor beneath her work table.

“Thanks for um… dropping by to clear the air,” she says.

“Thanks for letting me,” Ben replies, and he sounds so sincere that Rey’s eyes flicker up to look at him once more.

There’s something… soft, maybe about his expression that wasn’t there before. He still looks awkward and uncomfortable, but he’s no longer giving off the energy of an unstable chemical reaction waiting to happen.

Rey nods at him, because she doesn’t know what else to say, and watches in pensive silence as he sees himself out. She does not move until she hears his motorcycle roaring to life, and speeding off down the street, carrying him away from her once more.

Then she stumbles back to collapse onto her high stool, wondering what the actual hell had just transpired.

A series of text message notifications hit her phone in rapid succession, rattling the glass tubes on the table next to the device.

> _**From: Finn Gunner** _
> 
> _EARTH TO REY COME IN PLEASE!!!!!_
> 
> _**From: Finn Gunner** _
> 
> _Do I need to call the cops??_
> 
> _**From: Finn Gunner** _
> 
> _HELLO???_

Rey winces and goes to respond.

> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _sorry didnt mean to scare u_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _im good just… had a really weird conversation with ben_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _didnt know how that was gonna end but i think were ok now????_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _idk finn that guy is WEIRD_
> 
> _**From: Finn Gunner** _
> 
> _DON’T SCARE ME LIKE THAT MY HEART CAN’T TAKE IT_ 😫😫😫😫
> 
> _**From: Finn Gunner** _
> 
> _I was about to drive all the way from the westside to storm the gates of Solo’s house for answers._

She grins and laughs, despite herself. It’s not that Finn being terrified on her behalf is funny, but the mental image of her friend racing all the way across LA to beat up a guy twice his size is a pretty good one.

> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _its ok!!!!! promise_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _and sorry for the scare i just wanted a paper trail just in case_
> 
> _**From: Finn Gunner** _
> 
> _Girl, you’re crazy, you know that? SMDH_
> 
> _**From: Finn Gunner** _
> 
> _Oh, on another subject completely, we have some extra scrap metal at the shop, want me to bring it to dnd for you?_
> 
> _**From: Rey Sanderson** _
> 
> _u know i do ty bby_ 😘

Finn placated and a new source of scrap metal acquired, Rey sets her phone aside and forces herself to focus on what really matters right now: her job.

There’s a stack of client orders so thick that it’s almost more intimidating than exciting and Rey ends up being so busy that she actually manages to put her talk with Ben out of her mind for the rest of the week. She can’t even let herself think too much about the D&D game in general, or she’ll find herself slipping off into fanciful daydreams about it, losing track of the task at hand and inevitably messing something up.

Though, when friday evening finally rolls around, and she can feel the oppressive weight of burn-out beginning to settle on her shoulders, Rey decides that she’s finally earned a break. She settles onto her couch, looking over the stuff that Poe had sent her on Discord and she spends a while getting lost in pages upon pages of lore that he had written for their shared world.

Kira was a character who had been built mostly based on instinct and what sounded fun and seemed like it might be most useful to the party, but as Rey got a feel for who she was as a character, she was beginning to grow and develop in surprising ways, beyond the simple parameters of “Neutral Good Cleric Who Follows A God of Light”.

She was apparently slow to trust and quick to anger. She viewed her relationship with Jedha as one of fond exasperation, but would be the first person to jump to his defense. She was easily distracted and her friendship could be purchased with food far easier than coin.

As Rey had begun to explore this alternate persona, she’d found herself asking Poe for more information on the aspects of the campaign that had come before, so she could develop a much more concrete sense of Kira’s journey before she met the party.

Curled up on her sofa, scrolling through Poe’s description of the desert land of Jakku, she can almost feel the hot wind blowing against Kira’s cheeks, twin suns burning the pointed tips of her ears.

Rey falls asleep that night with her computer on her lap, and a faint smile on her lips, lost in dreams of adventures in a land, far, _far_ away.

* * *

As it turns out, luck – or perhaps some machination of the gods – has seen fit to take care of one part of the problem presented by Lo'an’s promise to the Troupe of Storm and Song the night before.

Lord Jango Fett is not, as they had feared, hiding out in some far-flung corner of the world. No, instead, the “King of Bounty Hunters” as he was known in some circles, had accompanied his troupe of war bards to Mos Eisley and was whiling away his time in the high-roller’s suite of the Canto Bight Casino at the north end of town.

The Troupe had been more than happy to provide the party with all the information they requested, verified by the Zone of Truth spell Kira cast upon them.

“Why would we lie?” Zerah asked with a huff. “We want our contract ended even more than you do.”

“Yeah, but you also hate my guts, and I’ve never known anyone who could hold a grudge as long as you lot, so forgive me if I don’t just take you at your word,” Dayo replied, dryly.

By the time night falls, they have a detailed description of Jango Fett and a solid guarantee that the contract – along with the bardic seals – would most likely be somewhere on his person.

“Well this has all been very interesting, but I have a more important question; where are we going to sleep tonight?” Dom asks, yawning widely.

“Certainly not anywhere back in the Taproom District,” Gwenna says, reproachfully. “Even if the guards didn’t catch us, I did see someone watching us and it might be smart for us to keep a low profile and stay out of there for a while. Shame about losing our room deposit though.”

“We might as well camp out here, then,” Kylo suggests. “That way we can maintain our watch on this lot.”

“That’s a good point,” Kira chimes in, frowning. “What are we going to do with them? We certainly can’t just leave them tied up all night, and what about tomorrow?”

“We can and we will, keep them tied up until we’re certain they’re not going to stab us all in our sleep or run back to their master to let him know where we are,” Kylo replies, firmly, crossing his arms over his broad chest.

Kira glares at him, crossing hers in return.

“But it’s inhumane –”

“Did you forget about the part where they tried to _kill_ us earlier?” the tiefling interrupts.

“Okay, you two, enough,” says Dayo. “They’re staying tied up _and_ gagged – because they’re _bards_ – tonight and tomorrow and however long it takes for us to deal with this Fett problem, but once we’ve dealt with him, we’ll let ‘em go. In the meantime, we’ll make sure they’re comfortable and like… get taken out to piss every now and then. Okay?”

Kira glares at both men, but she doesn’t have a good enough argument against Dayo’s suggestion. In truth, as someone who has never really _had_ an enemy, besides, of course, the Imperial forces she had combatted back in Niima, she really isn’t entirely equipped to make decisions about how to handle enemy combatants as prisoners.

Still, it chafes at her to imagine laying down for a night of comfortable rest while others sit in bondage across the room.

“Fine,” she says, with a huff. “But I want to make sure they’re fed and given water.”

“That we can do,” Lo'an says with a nod.

Kira sets about building a small fire in the center of the dilapidated building, to give them all some measure of light and warmth. The air in Mos Eisley is cold and clammy, in a way that makes her shiver with discomfort. She is a child of the desert heat and their short time hiking through the mountains had not been enough to acclimate her to the wetter weather.

Even as the flames grow and dance before her, and she wraps herself tightly in her gray cloak, Kira is distressed to find that she can’t seem to get warm.

A sudden weight drops around her shoulders, the scent of woodsmoke and cinnamon filling her nose. Startled, she glances up to see Kylo, who is no longer wearing his cape, is walking away from her as if nothing had happened.

The garment in question is made of fine, soft leather and heated by contact with Kylo’s body, it’s a perfect shield against the damp chill.

She’s so startled by the gesture that she doesn’t know how to respond. She is not so distracted, however, that she misses the incredulous look that Dom and Dayo share across the fire, and her face flushes for some reason she can’t quite name. She tucks herself deeper into the cape for comfort and tries to ignore them.

Once they’ve been fed, watered, and given the opportunity to relieve themselves, the prisoners are further secured with additional ropes and a few pairs of handcuffs that Gwenna had found in her Bag of Holding.

“Why do you have so _many_ of those?” Dom asks, as the rogue clicks the final pair shut around Nine’s meaty wrists.

Gwenna grins wolfishly at him.

“Sex reasons,” she says.

The wizard wrinkles his nose in response.

“I don’t know what else I expected,” he mutters, before heading off to cast an Alarm spell around the perimeter of their makeshift camp.

They sleep in shifts throughout the night, staying awake in teams of two in order to keep watch over their prisoners and the door to the dilapidated warehouse, but nothing bothers them. Kira’s watch with Gwenna passes mostly in amiable silence.

As their shift comes to an end, Dom and Kylo wake to take their places.

“Do you want your cape back?” Kira asks, tentatively holding it out to the tiefling.

Kylo shakes his head.

“Keep it,” he tells her, before settling into a seated position to begin his watch.

Secretly grateful that he hadn’t made her relinquish the warm cape, Kira wraps herself tighter in it and snuggles down into her bed roll, feeling safe and at ease amongst her new companions. She’s out within seconds, lulled to sleep by the crackle of the fire and the soft sound of Dom and Kylo arguing about nothing in particular.

* * *

“So, a new day dawns peacefully and you all begin to wake up, a little sore from sleeping in the elements once again, but well rested,” Poe says. “What would you like to do next?”

“Do we want to go scope out the casino, maybe?” Rey suggests, tapping her pencil against her chin. “It seems like from what the Troupe told us last night, Fett’s not really coming out, so we’re going to have to go in. Might make sense to go see what we’re up against.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t _all_ go? Six people is a pretty conspicuous group,” Rose suggests. “How about we send Dom and Dayo? And maybe Gwenna, who’s good at sneaking?”

“Sounds good to me,” Phasma says with a nod.

“I like that plan,” Hux says. “The rest of you can stick around and watch the prisoners, or whatever while we go and have a good time.”

“Yeah, don’t have too good a time or you’ll be rolling up a new character,” Ben grumbles, making Hux glare at him.

Rey has to bite her lip to keep from laughing. She’s still not sure if she trusts this change in Ben’s attitude to stick around, but at least Finn had been right when he’d said that Ben was funny.

“So, what are you guys doing?” Poe asks, leaning back in his chair to survey the group.

“Dom, Dayo, and Gwenna will be the recon squad,” Finn says, decisively.

“Then Kira, Lo’an, and Kylo will stick around the camp and keep an eye on the prisoners,” says Rey. “Which is probably for the best, since I think Kira is going to want to like… make sure they’re all okay.”

“Does she ask how they’re doing?” Poe inquires.

“Uh,” Rey says. “Yeah. She takes their gags out and asks if they’re comfortable.”

“Bond will say, ‘We’re prisoners, so no, we’re not comfortable’,” Poe replies, taking on the glowering countenance and tone of the troupe leader.

Rey sighs.

“Kira’s gonna go have a moral crisis about the ethics of holding people captive, I think,” she says.

Poe laughs.

“Alright, well, while the cleric gets depressed, what’s recon squad getting up to?”

* * *

They don’t have to wait long for the trio who went out on reconnaissance to come back. Only a couple hours at most, but in the daylight, Kira feels like she’s about to go _mad_ just sitting around in the warehouse.

When the tense silence that has fallen over the room becomes far more than she can bear, she goes to find a pool of sunlight to sit in, crossing her legs and resting her hands on her knees. She turns her face upwards into the warmth, basking in the glow.

She’s just settling into a meditative trance when she hears Lo’an say, “what’s she doing?”

“Probably talking to her god or something,” Kylo replies, distaste evident in his tone.

Kira thinks momentarily about reminding them that she can still _hear_ , but their conversation keeps going, and she instead finds herself compelled to listen in.

“Are you… _jealous_?” Lo’an asks.

“No,” the tiefling spits.

“You so _are_! Listen,” Lo’an replies. “You know I don’t hold much stock in the gods and all that business –”

“And you _shouldn’t_ ,” Kylo interrupts.

“Yeah, okay, you say that,” the druid continues, “but I don’t think you _actually_ mean it.”

“What are you talking about?” Kylo asks, flatly.

Kira holds very still and tries not to breathe too loudly, in fear that she might miss something important.

“Well,” Lo’an says. “You are a paladin.”

“I _was_ a paladin,” comes Kylo’s terse reply.

 _So I was right,_ Kira thinks.

Lo’an makes a throaty noise of irritation.

“The kind of belief that you need to make a paladin vow doesn’t just _vanish_ , Kylo,” she says. “Maybe it changes into something else – I don’t know, you won’t tell us what happened to you before and I’m not going to push the subject – but I think you owe it to yourself at least to be honest about the fact that the gods still matter to you, even if you don’t follow them any longer.”

There’s a long pause, during which the only sounds are the chirping of crickets and the wind whistling through the cracks between the boards of the warehouse.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kylo says, eventually, though his voice does not hold nearly enough conviction to sell his words as truth.

“If you say so,” Lo’an replies, evenly, and Kira gets the sense that the moment is over.

The conversation she’d had with Kylo on the day she’d joined the group drifts across her mind. She can still remember the way his obsidian eyes had flashed with anger as he spoke of his hatred for the gods. Abruptly, Kira feels very cold, as though the sunlight falling across her body has ceased to give off any heat.

 _What happened to you,_ she wonders, _what drove you so far from the light of the gods?_

Eyes still tightly shut, she forces herself to stop dwelling on Kylo and his broken faith, and to refocus on her meditation, reaching out once more for the golden beams of light that float like gossamer strands through the ether around her.

Jedha’s radiance reaches back and she sinks into the peace of devotion and prayer.

When she next reopens her eyes, it’s to the sound of the rest of the party returning once more, bearing news of the casino.

“Who’s ready to plan a heist?” Dayo asks.

“Hang on, before we get too carried away,” Kira says, turning to cast a silence spell over the prisoners, surrounding them in a bubble of quiet.

“Just in case someone is listening in on them or something,” she says.

The group settles in around the now long-dead fire to come up with a plan.

“Good thinking,” Gwenna says. “We safe to talk now?”

“Yep,” Kira replies, sitting down between Lo’an and Dom.

“So first off, holy shit,” Dayo is saying. “That place is _bonkers_!”

“It’s not _that_ great,” Dom replies. “You’ve just never been to a _real_ city before. In Arkanis– ”

“We’re not _in_ Arkanis and also no one cares,” Gwenna interrupts.

“Details, guys,” Lo’an chimes in. “We need details. Are there lots of guards? Magic defenses? What’s the dress code like?”

“We scoped out the outside and then popped inside for a hot second and the answers are: a shit load, also a shit load, and fancy,” Dom says, helpfully. “They didn’t much care for the way Gwen was dressed and they made all of us relinquish our weapons. Well, except me. I told them my staff was a walking stick and they let me keep it.”

“There are two entrances,” Gwenna cuts in, then continues, “front door with a security checkpoint and a servant’s access tunel. The door to that is hidden a few buildings over. It has a small group of guards on it too, but it might be a good escape option if things go pear-shaped.”

“The place has two floors and it looks like the big action is happening upstairs, but there’s a bouncer keeping the rabble – aka _us_ – from getting up there,” says Dayo.

“The good news is that the guard presence on the second floor itself is much lighter,” Dom says. “It would seem the bourgeois don’t want too many eyes watching their dirty deeds. Half the floor is dedicated to offices and private rooms, the other half is the high-stakes tables.”

“And how do you know all that?” Kylo asks, sounding skeptical.

“Because I went up there,” the wizard replies with a smug grin. “All it took was a little Suggestion spell and what do you know? Turns out I’m Lord Domniall Gaulien, Third Earl of Arkanis.”

He brushes some cat hair off of the sleeve of his dark blue robes.

“Is a ‘Third Earl’ even a thing?” Gwenna asks, tartly.

“You’re all mispronouncing ‘thank you’,” Dom says with a sniff.

There’s a collective groan from the group.

“Did you see Fett while you were up there?” Kira asks.

Dom nods.

“I actually met him, briefly. I bumped into him coming out of one of the private rooms this morning. He was wearing _horrible_ green robes that _completely_ clashed with those brass scales of his.” His lips curl like he’s just smelled something disgusting. “Really, I thought dragonborn were supposed to have _some_ taste, at least. Oh, and he’s keeping company with two half-orc women. They’re dressed up to look like ladies of the evening but one of them has biceps bigger than Kylo’s, so I’ll eat my boots if they’re not his bodyguards.”

Kira sneaks a glance over at Kylo and has to bite her lip to keep from laughing at the way the expression on the tiefling’s face keeps wavering between incredulity and offense.

“Right,” says Lo’an. “So, how do we want to play this?”

“I actually think we should use the Earl here,” Gwenna suggests, jabbing her thumb in Dom’s direction. “Since you’ve already established yourself as someone who can go upstairs, I say you should continue that ruse, and get him to meet you alone to discuss some private business.”

“Oh, I know! Tell him you’ve got a bounty out on someone,” Dayo says. “Fett _loves_ collecting bounties.”

“No, see, I can fool one idiot guard, but I am _not_ going to stick my neck out by lying repeatedly to someone who _breathes actual fire_ and is hanging out with people who could snap me like a twig without breaking a sweat,” Dom snaps, shaking his head. “Not gonna happen.”

“Okay, so take Kira and Kylo with you for protection,” the bard says with a shrug. “Kylo scares the shit out of most of the people we meet anyway, and Kira, you can do like… God stuff to make Dom… _better_ at lying, right?”

“I can certainly bless him, if that’s what you mean, but wouldn’t you or Gwenna be better suited to playing the face in this operation?” she asks. “Because I’m _also_ a bad liar and I’m not going to be much help beyond hitting people if things go south.”

“Unfortunately, I need to stay far away,” Dayo says, grimmly. “Because he owns my bardic seal, he’ll know if I get within fifty feet of him and it’ll blow our cover. I’m better served causing a commotion somewhere downstairs to distract the guards.”

“And, I would _love_ to mess with this dick, but honestly, I’ll be of more use setting up our escape route,” Gwenna says. “If things go wrong, Dom can send up a signal and we’ll put the distract and escape plan into action. Dayo can cause a ruckus while you guys slip out through the servants access tunnel. I’ll make sure the way is clear for you to do that.”

“What’s the signal?” Kira asks.

“Usually an explosion,” Dayo replies with a sigh.

“Lo, what are you gonna do?” Kylo asks.

“I’ll be part of the distraction squad too,” she says. “After all, if things get _really_ bad, I can always turn into a giant snake and cause mass hysteria.”

That gets an actual laugh out of everyone – _including_ Kylo – and some of the tension that had begun to gather eases.

“Oh!” Lo’an says, sitting up and snapping her fingers. “This is a good plan and all, but we’ve forgotten the most important part of heist prep.”

“What’s that?” Dayo asks, raising an eyebrow.

“ _Costumes_ ,” says the druid, with a mischievous grin.

* * *

“Alright,” Poe says. “So, it’s about five o’clock in the evening and those of you who can’t change your appearance have picked up some appropriate attire from shops in the Garment District. You’ve also managed to get across town without too much hassle, but after that close call with the city guard this afternoon, you know they’re still on the lookout for your group.”

Poe pauses, glancing down at his notes before he continues speaking.

“The Troupe of Storm and Song has been left locked up in the warehouse and you’ve paid a young dwarf boy to go and unlock their cuffs if you do not come back by noon the next day. You’re a few blocks from the casino now, tucked back in an alleyway. What do you want to do?”

“I know it’s a little late to ask, but does anyone else feel like this plan is… ” Rey trails off with a wince, “... not very good?”

Hux snorts loudly.

“It’s a better plan than a lot we’ve had in the past,” Phasma says.

“That does not make me feel more confident,” she replies, drily.

Poe beams beatifically down at them, and Rey feels distinctly like a mouse being watched by an owl up in a tree. She has a strong suspicion that for all their plotting and planning and scheming, everything is about to fall apart.

“Dayo is gonna make himself look like an ancient gnome, dressed in some nice, but slightly old fashioned robes,” Finn says. “He’ll say, ‘We might as well go ahead. This won’t get easier if we wait’.”

“Lo is going to do the thing where she hikes her boobs up so that they look really good in her new dress,” Rose says. “Maybe Druidcraft some extra fancy flowers on her headband, too.”

“If the _Earl_ is ready to go, then Kylo will probably fall into step behind him, trying not to look too uncomfortable out of his armor,” Ben says, then scowls. “And without his swords.”

“The _Earl_ ,” Hux replies, with great pleasure, “is definitely ready.”

“So, I know I was supposed to play bodyguard as well, but Rose bullied me into getting Kira a dress too, so how should we do this?” Rey asks, looking between Ben and Hux. “I’ve got my mace strapped to my thigh, but I’m gonna have to get pretty wild to get at that.”

The red-head grins.

“Looks like you just got upgraded to arm candy,” he says.

Rey sighs.

“So, I guess Kira will go to like… wrap her arm around Dom’s–”

“Oh no,” Hux cuts her off. “When you do that, Dom is going to hold up his hands to stop you and say, ‘I meant arm candy for _him_ ,’ and point at Kylo. Then he’ll just shrug and say, ‘No offense, I’m sure you’re very pretty, but I’m not interested in clerics. Or women’.”

Rey resists the urge to throw her yellow D20 at Hux’s smug face and feels like she deserves a medal for that alone.

She’s been trying not to bother Ben as much as possible, but the group _can’t_ leave them alone. It’s like they’re just going to keep poking at Rey and Ben until they snap and provide them with a sufficient explanation for their newfound peace.

“Fine, okay,” says Rey. “Kira will go stand next to Kylo and look up at him with a healthy dose of trepidation.”

Ben, who is slightly pink in the cheeks and glaring at Hux says, “Kylo will take her arm, then realize that he’s too tall for that to work well and… I don’t know… rest his hand against her back, I guess.”

Hux waggles his stupid ginger eyebrows at Ben, and Rey begins planning his murder.

“Kira blesses Dom, but she very strongly considers cursing him instead,” Rey says, glaring, as she marks the spell slot as expended on her sheet. “Take your stupid extra D4. Shame you can’t add that to your charisma rolls in real life.”

“Right, well, Gwenna is going to split off from the party, heading for the building with the servant’s entrance,” Phasma says, turning to look over at Poe. “And as she rounds a corner away from the party’s line of sight, she’s going to use her hat of disguise to change her appearance into that of an extremely nondescript human man, dressed in the uniform that she saw the dealers wearing earlier. Then, she’s gonna head off towards the servant’s entrance.”

The whole table rounds on her.

“You _can’t_ be serious,” Ben says, dropping his head into his hands. “A _dealer?_ Not, you know, a _guard_ , maybe? Are you _really_ gonna try to rob this fucking casino? _Right now?_ ”

Phasma _winks_.

“Gwenna’s gonna do what Gwenna’s gonna do,” she says.

The rest of the table erupts into yelling and talking over one another.

“You don’t know what she’s up to!” Phasma says gleefully, while Finn wails about insight checks and the mechanics of deception.

Rey groans, laying her face down on top of her _Player’s Handbook_.

“We’re gonna die,” she mumbles into the pages.

“Don’t worry,” Ben says, below the din. “When Gwenna gets caught red-handed, we can use her death as the distraction and run away.”

Rey laughs and sits back up.

“Okay, okay; everyone settle down,” says Poe. “Gwenna has vanished and the rest of you are drawing closer to the casino now. Do you all go in together or separately?”

* * *

They approach the building in a staggered fashion, Lo’an first, followed by Dayo a few minutes later. Kira stands with Kylo, flanking Dom, waiting in the gathering darkness, until Dom decides that he’s ready to make his way into the casino.

She’s trying to find _anything_ to focus on, other than the warmth of Kylo’s hand, bleeding through the fine, dove gray fabric of the stupid slinky gown that Lo’an had insisted she buy. His palm spans nearly the entire width of the small of her back, and it’s making her feel a little light-headed.

Kira had assumed that much of Kylo’s size was due to his armor, however, he somehow manages to look larger in the black trousers and silk doublet than he ever had in his iron plate. She can feel his tail twitching with agitation behind them, occasionally brushing against the gauzy, trailing skirt of her dress.

In an effort to keep herself from jumping out of her skin, Kira stares intently at the back of Dom’s robes, realizing for the first time that they are of infinitely finer make than she had ever noticed before. The silvery embroidery around his collar and cuffs is _actual_ silver and the wool fabric is so fine that it almost looks like velvet.

It’s then that Dom decides their time has come, and he heads off towards the casino, affecting a limp and leaning on his staff as he goes. Kylo’s hand presses against Kira’s spine, urging her forwards and she falls into step with him.

The security is surprisingly deferential to their group, compared to the treatment other visitors are receiving. They seem to recognize Dom from earlier in the day, as a member of their elite clientele, and they barely spare a glance at herself and Kylo, other than to give them a cursory once over for obvious weaponry.

“Welcome back, my Lord Gaulien,” a female halfling guard, says to Hux with a courteous bow of her head.

Dom gives her a dismissive nod and begins to wade through the room.

“Why the hell did he use his real name?” Kylo bends down to whisper in her ear, frowning as they are waved past the guards. “And how many people did he _suggest_ he was an Earl to, anyway?”

She opens her mouth to answer, but the words are stolen from her lips by the sight that unfolds before her.

As they pass beneath the casino’s ornate entryway, Kira is grateful for the presence of Kylo’s hand at her back, keeping her from freezing in place. She is _dazzled_ by the interior of the room, from the glittering, white marble floor to the soaring ceiling, the polished wooden gaming tables, the _decadence_ of the attire she sees on the occupants, it’s all just _too much_.

Kira feels like she’s fallen into a massive jewel box, occupied by rare and magnificent creatures from the far realms. Faint strains of music rise above the chatter of the crown and the rattle of coins, and she’s so overwhelmed she simply can’t take it all in. She thinks that she might catch sight of Lo’an standing near a table with a number of enormous, brightly-colored beetles, who are being set up for a race, and Dayo perched on a high stool at a card table towards the entrance to the kitchen, but she can’t be certain.

“Don’t be a tourist,” Kylo murmurs into her ear, and she snaps back to reality.

“Sorry,” Kira says breathlessly, blinking in surprise, as she realizes that they’ve already crossed most of the lower floor, passing gaming tables and bars on their way to the tall spiral staircase towards the back of the room that leads up to the second floor.

Once more, the guards treat Dom – and Kira and Kylo by association – with an inordinate amount of deference and Kira’s suspicions mount by the second that for all of Dom’s protestations about being a bad liar, that he may very well have pulled one over on all of them.

She pauses, one step above him so that she can actually _reach_ his stupid head without standing on her tiptoes, and whispers into Kylo’s pointed, red ear, “I’m starting to think this might not be an act for him.”

Kylo’s dark eyes don’t leave the wizard, but he turns his head slightly to whisper back, “I’m starting to agree with you.”

They continue to ascend the stairs in Dom’s wake and –

* * *

“Hey Dom,” says Poe. “Go ahead and give me a general performance check.”

“Why performance?” Hux whines. “I’m _terrible_ at that.”

“Just make the roll,” Poe instructs. “I want to know how well you’re selling this act. I’ll even give you advantage since Ben and Rey are assisting you.”

Grumbling, Hux rolls a pair of D20’s.

“Well that would be a four and a thirteen,” he says.

“Did you add your D4?” Rey asks.

Hux gives her a flat look.

“Yeah, and I rolled a one so thanks for all the help,” he says.

“Hey, it’s not Rey’s fault you’re bad at D&D,” says Finn, which only serves to further irritate Hux.

Poe’s smile widens, ever so slightly.

“Good to know,” he says.

“Oh, this is going to go _very_ well, I can just feel it,” Finn says, as he covers his face with his hands.

* * *

The upper floor of the casino is quieter by far than the boisterous lower level. Small groups of finely dressed people stroll through the decadent smoking lounge that bridges the gap between the high roller suite on the right and the private rooms on the left.

Dom pauses, looking to the right.

“Let’s hope your god is feeling generous tonight,” he says in a low voice, “Because that’s the guy you want me to lie to.”

Kira follows Dom’s gaze, and in the heart of the high roller suite, seated at a gleaming mahogany table, she catches her first glimpse of their mark.

Jango Fett is a dragonborn – a humanoid being, a little shorter than Kylo, with distinctly draconic features. He’d powerfully built, and his brass scales glitter like new gold in the light from the chandelier above the gaming table.

His reptilian snout is parted in a grin, displaying sharp, white teeth. One of his clawed, scaly hands reaches out to drag a heap of platinum across the table towards his body, much to the displeasure of the other players. To Fett’s left, sit a pair of identical high elf women with deep umber skin and golden hair. To his right is a stout, brown-haired male dwarf who is puffing furiously on a pipe which is producing massive rings of purple smoke.

“Seems like I’m on quite the roll. Deal me in again,” Fett’s booming voice and the laugh that follows, echo through the quiet space.

He leans back, addressing the taller of his half-orc bodyguards, dressed in dark blue satin, but doesn’t bother lowering his volume at all.

“Go get me another drink. Make it something with a little kick this time, no more of this gnome piss,” he orders, and the woman bows her head, before slipping away to fulfil his request. The other, dressed in wine red, adjusts her position slightly so that she’s fully covering her boss’s back.

The dealer, a slight, sandy haired human man begins laying out cards once more.

It’s then, that Fett looks up, eyes flickering between Dom, Kylo, and Kira. His draconic grin widens.

“Lord Gaulien!” Fett bellows, making all three of them jump a little. “They told me you might be back – and I had _so_ hoped they were right – but I didn’t expect to see you again so soon. And with such… curious company. Come, the game’s just started over. Join me for a few rounds of Emperor’s Gambit.”

Kira and Kylo exchange a worried glance.

When the wizard does not immediately respond, the dragonborn pats the open seat at his side.

“I insist,” he says.

Dom, who seems to have momentarily become rooted to the spot, forces himself to begin walking forwards once again. The motions look a little stiff and wooden, like a clockwork toy gone too long without oiling. She and Kylo trail after him, doing their best to look as uninteresting as possible.

“Ahh, Lord Fett; I was also hoping to find you here,” Dom says, though he could not sound less convincing if he tried.

“Well isn’t this a… _happy_ coincidence, then,” Fett replies as Dom drops into the seat beside him.

“Oh?” Dom asks.

“Yes, it’s the damnedest thing but I heard a rumor this afternoon, about some associates of mine who’ve gone missing,” Fett says, voice light and friendly as ever. “A friend of mine was hanging out in the Taproom District yesterday and he claimed that they’d last been seen in the company of a few peculiar folks…”

The dragonborn man plucks his card up from the surface of the table, holding them delicately in his massive, clawed hands.

“… including a wizard with copper hair, a little elf-y cleric, and a big… red… tiefling,” Fett finishes, eyes sliding sideways to look at Dom, who is the approximate color of curdled milk, then up, to give Kira and then Kylo a thorough once over. “All it took was a quick little scrying spell by my girl Nala to confirm that story.”

Seeming to sense that the table is no longer a place for the sort of fun conducive to living a long and healthy life, both of the elven women decide to take their leave. The dwarf, however, watches the proceedings with great interest, continuing to puff furiously on his pipe.

“So, _boy_ , what could you possibly hope to achieve by coming right to me while holding my war bards hostage?” Fett asks.

Kira’s hand tightens on Kylo’s arm. She swallows.

They haven’t even been here for a full five minutes, and already, the jig is up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: All hell breaks loose in the casino (and also Ben’s heart).
> 
> Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated and encourage me to write faster!
> 
> If you’d like to support my work (or just want to yell at me about this story), you can do so on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/commandercait), or [Tumblr](http://commandercait.tumblr.com) (even though I’m really not using it much since they’ve decided to set their whole platform on fire).


	5. Losing The Plot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously (since it's been a while): Neon artist Rey joins former actor Ben's D&D group (DMed by Poe) and their first meeting goes terribly. Ben struggles to adjust to a new person in his sanctuary space while Rey finds his behavior inexcusably rude. After two disastrous games, Poe tells the two of them to work it out and they finally have a chat and agree to a truce.
> 
> In the game, Rey's character (a half elf Cleric named Kira) has joined the party and had a bad encounter with Ben's character, the mysterious Tiefling paladin, Kylo. In the city of Mos Eisley, the party is attacked by a Troupe of bards from party member Dayo's past and they end up agreeing to take on a bounty hunter in order to repay a debt. But the bounty hunter is hanging out in a well-guarded casino and everyone is rolling terribly.........

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO. UH. SORRY. I didn't die in an earthquake but I did need some time away from writing fic because.... well, I'm working on publishing Play To Win! I'll be hiding that story from public view at the end of the week, so save a copy now if you want one! I am SO intensely grateful for the support that this fandom has shown me and my work and I really can't wait to see where this goes in the future! This is not the end of me writing fic (obviously), so on that note, let's keep going!
> 
> All my love to my INCREDIBLE beta team: [cyborgharpy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyborgharpy), [VioletWilson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/violetwilson), and [LoveofEscapism](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveofEscapism) for helping me turn this fic into something readable and holding my hand while I panicked about everything. They seriously do so much and I love them with ALL MY HEART.
> 
> Please don’t forget to tag me if you make something cool related to this story so I can share it in the next chapter!!!

_Why,_ Kylo thinks, _did I leave my fucking swords behind?_

He’s standing at Dom’s back with Kira’s tiny hand wrapped tightly around his wrist, watching the wizard shift and tug at the collar of his robes in discomfort.

 _Why didn’t we insist that Gwenna do this part? Or try to lure Fett out into an ambush? Or remember that Scrying spells are a thing? Kira was right; this plan is_ terrible.

Kylo mentally calculates how long it would take for him to yank the daggers out of his boots and get them up against Fett’s throat.

The guard in blue re-enters the room, pausing only long enough to set Fett’s drink down on the table, before stepping neatly into place between Kylo and her boss, making it clear that if he so much as draws a breath she doesn’t approve of, she’ll be on him faster than he can exhale.

“Your bards. Uh, yes. Right,” Dom’s voice cracks and he stutters a little. “Those guys.”

 _Here it fucking comes,_ Kylo thinks, steeling himself.

“That’s actually what I was hoping to discuss with you,” says Dom, “because I– ah, that is, I am indeed holding them captive.”

Fett raises a hand and both of his guards are suddenly wielding short swords.

Kylo can feel the tip of one pressing into the flesh of his unarmored torso. One good thrust and his life is over. Kira is nearly vibrating with nervous energy besides him.

The other sword is pointed directly at the base of Dom’s skull, gleaming tip parting his copper locks.

In the u-bend of the gaming table, the dealer remains unfazed, continuing to shuffle the deck of cards and rearrange the stacks of coins, as though he’s a clockwork automaton in standby mode.

“Kill–” Fett begins.

“Wait!” Dom says, throwing up his hands and cutting the dragonborn off mid-speech. “Wait. Please. Uh, I did not come here to fight! I have a– a proposition! For you!”

Lord Fett shifts, slowly in his seat, massive, scaly body turning ever so slightly to the left as his draconian eye ridge raises slightly in curiosity.

“Oh?” he asks, and small curls of smoke wind out from his flared nostrils. “Thus far you’ve kidnapped my bards, introduced yourself to me this morning under false pretenses, and weaseled your way back in here _again_ without so much as a word of your true intentions until knives came out. Are you really so confident that what you have to offer me will be enough to buy your life and the lives of your companions?”

Dom grows impossibly paler.

“Yes?” He says, though it comes out more like a question than an answer.

“My Lord, what could you possibly hope to offer me, under _these_ circumstances, that would make me reconsider killing you on the spot?” Fett sneers.

“This is all a misunderstanding. It is uh– _unfortunate_ that your Troupe attacked my party the way they did,” The wizard swallows. “I didn’t _want_ to take them hostage, but they left me no choice when they wouldn’t call off their attack. It was capture them or kill them and I didn’t think that was wise, when it was you I was in the city to see in the first place.”

Fett leans back, just slightly, setting his cards face down on the table, regarding Dom with _deep_ suspicion.

“Oh?” he asks, archly. “What business could you – a minor lordling from half the world away – and I, a simple… entrepreneur – have together that would warrant this sort of trip?”

The point of the sword presses ever so much harder into Kylo’s flesh and he shoots the bodyguard a glare. She stares back at him, impassive. At his side he can feel a crackle of energy against his skin and he knows that Kira is gathering her power in preparation for all hell to break loose.

Dom looks like he’s on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

“No need to be modest; you _are_ Jango Fett, King of the Bounty Hunters, aren’t you?” he asks, voice nearly an octave higher than usual. “It’s why I was here earlier… confirming your identity and… all that.”

Fett frowns a little.

“You still haven’t answered my question, boy,” he says, voice sharp.

Kylo closes his eyes and does something he hasn’t in a very long time: he prays.

 _It’s… been a while and I’m still not sure this isn’t just going out into the great, black beyond like it has so many times before, but Jedha… if you’re not a total deadbeat, we could use some help,_ he thinks, _especially if you don’t want anything bad to happen to your girl, Kira here._

His eyes open once more. The dark wood paneled room, golden chandeliers, and red velvet furnishings of the high-roller suite fill his vision, along with Dom and Fett who are locked in an intense stare down.

What appears to be the majority of the upstairs casino guards have begun to edge their way into the room, keeping a low profile and sticking close to the walls.

At least he’s about to die somewhere pretty. Because Fett might have humored Dom this far, but there’s no way the wizard can pull a lie good enough to save their hides out of his ass.

“I’m– that is, I’m here to offer you a– a bounty,” Dom stammers, and Kylo can see the wizard’s knuckles clenched to white around his staff. “There’s a five thousand platinum reward, actually. But I won’t say anything else until we can, um… speak somewhere more private. Oh, and uh, also when you’re not threatening my life.”

Fett’s scaly eye-ridge raises and –

* * *

“Make a deception check. At disadvantage because he’s already suspicious of you,” Poe says, “and roll _high_.”

Hux, who looks like he’s actually about to throw up – which is a little ironic, given how often he makes fun of everyone else at the table for how invested they are in the game – scoops up a pair of D20’s, shakes them with great vigor, and tosses them into his dice tray.

There’s silence in the room so heavy that it actually rings in Ben’s ears. Besides him, Rey is tearing the paper napkin her can of ginger ale had been sitting on into shreds.

“I got a natural twenty and a six,” Hux says, at last, dropping his face into his palms. “So, with my plus one bonus and the fucking one I rolled on the bless D4, that brings us to a big, fat eight.”

Poe rolls a die behind his DM’s screen and his brows shoot up his forehead.

“I can’t fucking believe this,” he says.

“What?” Finn demands. “What did you roll?”

Poe picks his die up and holds it out so that the table can see the number that is facing up.

“Natural fucking one,” he says, in utter disbelief. “Dom, your voice cracks and breaks, you stammer and stutter, tripping over your words and it’s obvious to every person in the room that what you’ve just said is a load of bullshit. Everyone, that is, except Fett, who hears the words ‘five thousand platinum’ and loses his grip on reality, _I guess_.”

Poe throws his hands in the air and shakes his head.

The whole table lets out a collective sigh of relief.

“Holy shit,” Rey says with a nervous giggle, “I cannot believe that worked.”

“Me _either_ ,” Phasma says, blowing a heavy breath out through her nose, “I was just about ready to blow my cover too. Which would have been a shame, because I’m only about half way done swapping all the platinum on the table out for fools gold.”

Hux rounds on her.

“You’re just as big a liability here as I am!” He snaps.

“Hey!” Phasma says, raising her hands in defense, “I’m just trying to secure our bail money for when you inevitably end up back in jail – or funeral costs for when all of you bite it, which seems more likely at this point, if we’re being honest.”

“Phas, you’re not fooling anyone,” Rose says, though she’s grinning.

While Ben is glad that everyone else is having a grand old time, all _he_ can think about is the fact that as things stand, in this casino, the following things are going on:

One: Gwenna _has_ in fact, taken out the guards on both the entrance and exit of the servant’s access tunnel, ensuring that her handiwork will not be discovered by creating an illusory sign on the door that reads _‘Do Not Enter: Poisonous Gas Leak!’_. She is currently pretending to be the Emperor’s Gambit dealer at the high-roller table, and is stealing all the cash she could get her hands on, not that she’d bothered to let anyone else in on that particular aspect of her plot.

Two: Dayo has lost a staggering amount of money gambling against three dwarves who are very likely counting cards. Lo’an is well on her way to being drunk off of the single, highly potent cocktail she’d ordered “as camouflage” and has gotten into an argument with the gnome woman in charge of the beetle races.

And three: There are two half-orc women in slinky dresses holding swords on Kylo and Dom, while they lie their fancy pants off to an angry dragonborn bounty hunter, and Kira comes ever closer to letting off a spell that will _surely_ blow what shreds of their cover remain to kingdom come.

Ben is _way_ too stressed about this to see any of the humor in it. Which _is_ , admittedly, a little embarrassing, in and of itself.

It’s not his fault he’s gotten so damn attached to his dumb D&D character, that the idea of anything happening to Kylo makes him break into a cold sweat.

After the week Ben has had – the rollercoaster of feelings and his insanely emotional confrontation with Rey, which he has been unable to get out of his head, mostly because he has nothing besides going to the gym, watching TV and playing video games to keep him busy – he’s pretty sure that if they end up with a Total Party Kill tonight he’s gonna have another breakdown.

He makes a mental note to bring this up during his next therapy session.

“Can we please focus on the situation at hand?” Ben grumbles.

“Which one?” moans Finn. “Everything is terrible and we’re all going to die; Hux’s deception check was just a short stay of execution.”

“Speaking of which,” interjects Poe, with a predatory smile, “let’s get back to that.”

* * *

The fact that they actually manage to get Fett out of the High Roller’s suite without bloodshed is a miracle in and of itself.

Every patron in the high roller’s suit watches with naked curiosity as the odd group marches in tense silence out of the gambling room, across the lounge, and over to the residences.

 _So much for keeping a low profile,_ Kylo thinks bitterly.

A Yuan-Ti snake woman in a slinky, black and white gown, with hair like a waterfall of ink meets his gaze curiously, for a fraction of a second. Set in an alabaster face that glitters with almost translucent scales, her eyes, with their slit pupils and burning red irises feel somehow familiar. But before he can gather his thoughts, she turns away from him to whisper in the ear of her goliath companion, and he’s being “ushered” inside of the door to Fett’s private room by the bodyguard in red.

She gives him a nasty little smile that makes his blood run cold. Kylo swallows hard and enters the room.

As the door to the bounty hunter’s quarters swings shut behind them, Kylo is struck by a dread certainty that their luck has just run out.

While spacious by the standards of the temporary accommodations that Kylo had become accustomed to on the road, Fett’s room is not large enough to comfortably accommodate six full grown humanoids, meaning that Kira is pressed into his side and Dom is close enough that Kylo can reach out and hug him from behind, if he so desires. Which honestly might be the only thing that Kylo _can_ do, when violence breaks out, because he’s _useless_ in tight quarters combat.

The bounty hunter stands with his back to the luxurious four-poster bed that occupies the wall opposite the door. A single, glass-paned window above the bed shows a dazzling view of night-time revelry in the city outside.

For their part, Kylo, Kira, and Dom are crowded together in the center of the room between the roaring fire in the hearth and a claw-footed armoire, cracked open just slightly to reveal a number of opulent robes stored within.

The half-orc women have fallen into place on either side of the door, effectively trapping their party inside.

“Alright, Earl,” Fett says, at last, crossing his arms over his chest, “I’ve done my part. Tell me about this bounty.”

The wizard, whose skin has been slowly changing colors from a furious red to an alarming purple to an ashen, greenish white, like some sort of living kaleidoscope, meets Fett’s eyes, swallows, and says,

“Bounty? Right. Yes. The bounty.”

Dom’s voice is nearly an octave _too_ high. Any confidence that he’d been able to muster earlier has all but vanished. He has never sounded more untrustworthy in his whole, dishonest life.

“Yes, _the bounty_ ,” Fett says, voice hissing through his sharp teeth.

“Uh, well. The bounty is…” Dom swallows audibly. “It’s… uh… that is…”

Fett’s eyes narrow and he takes half a step forwards.

“Unless there _is_ no bounty and this was all just a ruse to get me alone. But you wouldn’t _really_ be that stupid now, would you?”

Dom’s spine goes ramrod straight and the color drains from his face altogether. Time seems to slow in the room, every second taking a year to drag by.

“You know what? Fuck this,” the wizard says, raising his staff and slamming it down onto the ground.

Kylo feels the temperature in the room rising just a second before the spell goes off, which is all the warning he gets, before he’s forced to dive out of the way of a massive fireball. He pulls Kira with him as he goes down, shielding her with his own fire-resistant frame, cradling the back of her head with one of his palms to prevent it from cracking against the floor. Her cry of surprise is muffled against his throat.

There is no time for Kylo to consider the way his body reacts to the feeling of her lips on his skin, or the way she looks, pinned to the floor beneath him. The heat of the fire washes over him like a wave of slightly-too-warm bathwater, his infernal heritage keeping him safe from any real danger.

The scent of smoke and singed flesh fills the now-burning room, along with the screams of rage and pain from Fett and his guards. The half-orcs are both badly burnt, the one in blue having lost most of her long, white hair, the other is trying desperately to pat out the fire that has all but consumed her dress, blistering the flesh beneath. Fett is laying in the flaming, collapsed ruins of the bed, more stunned than injured.

Kira shoves Kylo off of her and leaps to her feet in a split second, ripping her gown from ankle to thigh in order to reach her mace.

“I _knew_ this was a bad plan!” She spits bitterly, holding her free hand out to help Kylo up. He takes it and rolls fluidly to his feet, snatching a dagger out of his boot as he goes. There’s a flash of metal behind Kira and Kylo moves without a thought; using his momentum, he pulls her behind him and brings his newly freed dagger up just in time to block the swipe from the furious guard in blue.

“I’m beginning to agree with you,” he says through gritted teeth.

“Fight now, say your ‘I told you so’s’ later,” Dom snaps at them, before summoning eight velociraptors, all of whom make a b-line for Fett’s prone form.

“You have _no idea_ who you’re messing with, Lord Gaulien!” Fett roars, flailing wildly as he attempts to throw the ferocious lizards off of him as they sink their needle sharp fangs into the bounty hunter’s scaly flesh. “I will – _augh!_ – I will _skin_ _you_ for this and hunt down _everyone_ you’ve _ever_ loved for this! Nala, Kosai! Kill them!”

Fett’s tail lashes around, throwing off several of the raptors and allowing him to finally get to his feet. They have little time to pay attention to the bounty hunter, however, because the half-orcs are on them in a second, fighting with a ferocity that shows no indication of how seriously both women have been hurt.

The one in red comes for Kylo, slicing at his unarmored stomach and sides, forcing him to dodge and stumble back through the debris strewn room. Her counterpart in blue strikes out for Dom’s back, only to be stopped by Kira’s mace. Kira dives at the much taller woman, bodily forcing her away from the wizard and into the smoldering wreckage of the armoire.

“Pick on someone your own size,” she spits, glaring up at the half-orc.

Distantly, Kylo can hear that someone is pounding on the door to the room, and bile rises in his throat, as dark rage flares in his gut.

“We need to hurry this the fuck up,” he says, before reaching out through the dark ether for the mind of his opponent. His sword is farther from him than any time he’s tried this in the past, but the dark power rises up when he calls, nonetheless, as if it was there all along, simply waiting for him. He does not dwell for too long on what that means.

In his mind’s eye, the psyche of his opponent is already fractured and fragmented with pain and rage and it doesn’t take much for him to exert his will over her. A jagged crown of dark iron wraps itself around her forehead and the fever of madness takes hold of her mind. The half-orc breaks off her assault on Kylo, spinning on her heel to dive for her former partner instead.

“Nala! Stop it!” The blue-clad guard cries, trying her best to fend off the unexpected assault, to no avail.

Kylo stoops to yank his second dagger out of his boot and turns to see how the rest of the fight is playing out. Outside the room, the pounding increases, along with muffled shouting, but the door holds fast.

The dragonborn is employing his fire-breath to clear away Dom’s velociraptor army. Or he is, until the Hold Person spell that Kira fires at him takes effect and he is suddenly frozen in place.

“Quick! Search him!” She orders Kylo and Dom.

“What?” Kylo asks, blinking.

“I can’t hold him forever! So hurry up and get the contract and the seals so we can get out of here!” She says, gesturing in Fett’s direction.

“We can’t leave him alive, Kira,” Dom says, grimly. “Not if we ever want to sleep soundly again.”

The dragonborn’s golden eyes are burning with hatred, a froth of spittle clinging to his fangs.

“But–!” Kira begins and Kylo can _see_ her distress writ clear as day across her face as her moral compass and sense of self preservation slam into conflict.

“He’s a bounty hunter and he wants all our heads! You can hold a funeral for him later if it bothers you so much,” Kylo snaps, flipping his daggers around into a throwing grip.

“Good enough for me,” Dom says, before slamming his staff into the ground once more and firing a barrage of Magic Missiles directly into Fett’s chest.

Nala, the guard who Kylo had driven mad, drives her sword into the gut of the other guard who falls to the ground dead, and lets out a shriek of vicious joy. Without pause she turns on her employer, who is bleeding profusely, most likely only kept on his feet by the power of Kira’s magic.

The guard’s sword swings down in a massive, overhand arc that scores a line into the ceiling and wall of the room and nearly cleaves Fett’s chest in half.

Kylo _does not_ feel bad for the way that Kira’s eyes widen with abject horror as the effect of her spell keeps the corpse of the former King of the Bounty Hunters standing for just a few seconds longer than any corpse should ever stand. Then it collapses to the floor in a pool of blood, at the feet of the blistered and bleeding half orc, whose eyes, consumed with a fevered madness are darting frantically around the room for her next target.

He breathes out heavily through his nose before sinking both daggers into her back, dropping her instantly.

Silence and smoke and the tang of blood fills the room.

Dom waves his hand, dismissing his remaining raptors before brushing down his robes.

“Well, that could have gone better,” the wizard says with a sigh.

“We killed _three people_ ,” Kira hisses, clenching her fists in rage. “This is not the time for jokes.”

“Can we talk about your moral crisis later please?” Dom says.

“Fuck you–” Kira starts and Kylo’s eyebrows fly skyward at the profanity from the usually mild mannered cleric.

“- going on in there? Someone get this damn door open!”

Now that the sounds of combat have died away, he can hear the voices outside the room more clearly.

“Dom’s right; this is a conversation for later,” Kylo says, shortly, before stooping down to riffle through Fett’s pockets, looking for the contract and seals they came for in the first place.

He finds them tucked inside of a leather folio, stored in the inner pocket of the dragonborn’s robes. Blood has stained some of the other documents and Kylo knows that pulling them apart once it’s dried and congealed is going to be a nightmare, but thankfully the contract, as a magical document, is more resistant to damage and remains pristine. He takes the whole folio, the small metal loop holding six golden bardic seals, and Fett’s two belt pouches, tucking everything into his own pockets for later examination.

“We’ve got what we came for,” Kylo says, getting back to his feet.

Kira glares at him, though her anger turns to alarm as something smashes into the door hard enough to splinter the wood.

“So. That’s not good. What now?” Dom asks.

* * *

To say that anyone else in the party is doing _statistically_ better than the group stuck in Fett’s room would be a lie.

Ben is so tense that he keeps snapping pencils by holding them too tightly, and there is a small pile of splintered writing implements growing to the right of his notebook.

The longer they play, the more apparent it becomes that – much like a real casino – Poe’s fantasy casino is designed specifically to prevent people from causing trouble and then walking out.

Dom’s fireball had been powerful enough to shake the foundations and chandeliers of the building, sending the patrons into an immediate frenzy and the guards into a state of high alert.

As the entire force of the Canto Bight security team prepared to charge to the aid of the minimal guard presence above, Finn had decided that the best way to prevent that from happening was to make the stairs vanish.

A quick Hallucinatory Terrain spell had replaced the grand staircase with a chasm to the Underdark in the middle of the casino floor.

Lo’an had taken the momentary distraction as an opportunity to release the racing beetles – who were now zooming wildly around the room on their glittering, chitinous wings – before transforming into a giant snake and began to chase patrons around. The result of this was, of course, chaos.

The resulting stampede of people fleeing for the exit had effectively cleared the bottom floor of the building, sweeping the hapless guards out the door like they’d been caught in a riptide.

Which brought them to the situation at hand.

Kylo, Kira, and Dom were still locked inside of Fett’s room on the second floor, surrounded by corpses and fire, while the four guards on the upper floor tried to break down the arcane lock that held the door shut.

And then there was Phasma, who… well. Is being Phasma.

“So. Let me get this straight,” Poe says, “because I’ve been DMing since I was twelve and this is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Phasma grins like a cat who got the cream.

“The stairs have just vanished, the lower floor is full of screaming, your friends are trapped in a room with guards trying to break the door down, your pockets are full of stollen platinum and you want to…” Poe trails off.

“I want to turn into Kylo and go see if I can lure the guards outside the door away,” she says, grinning even wider.

“You know, I think Rey was right; we’re terrible at making plans,” Finn says.

“Maybe _you_ guys are bad at making plans,” Phasma says, “but I’m not. Because I understand the one fundamental truth about D&D: don’t make plans, just do what feels right. The dumber your idea is, the more likely it is to work.”

“From what I’ve seen thus far, you’re not wrong,” Rey says.

“So are you doing this, Gwenna?” Poe asks.

Phasma nods decisively.

“Yup. I hide behind a potted plant and make sure that no one is looking at me and then I use my Hat of Disguise to turn into Kylo.”

“Roll me a stealth check to see if you’re spotted,” Poe says, as he rolls a couple dice of his own.

“Three,” Phasma says, with a groan.

“It’s too chaotic around you for you to be able to tell if anyone is paying attention to you, but no one is being obvious about it if they are,” Poe replies.

Phasma leans forwards to look over the battle map on the table and points to the crowd of guards around the door to Fett’s room.

“Okay, so I run up to like… ten feet away from them and in my best Kylo voice, I yell ‘Boo!’,” she says.

Ben snorts a laugh.

“You’re ruining my image,” he tells her.

She winks. “It was too grimdark before. I’ve improved it. You’re welcome.”

Poe moves Phasma’s minifig across the map then looks to her.

“And you’re trying to… make them think one of the people they’re looking for has just appeared outside of the room now?” Poe arches a brow at Phasma, who nods in response. “Make me a deception… wait, no, performance check.”

Phasma rolls and her smile gets _impossibly_ wider.

“That would be a natural twenty,” she says, gleefully.

Poe buries his face in his hands while the table erupts with whoops and laughter.

“All four of the guards spin around, catch sight of you, and immediately leave off trying to break down the door in order to run at you with blades drawn. They’re all screaming things like ‘Stop right there!’ and ‘How did you escape?!’ as they head your way. What do you do?” Poe asks.

“Oh I say, ‘Oh boy, do I love committing murder and theft inside of this casino! Catch me if you can, fuck-o’s!’ and then I turn and race for the stairs – or I guess where the stairs used to be,” Phasma says.

Ben levels a glare at her.

“I hate you so much,” he says. “If this gets _me_ killed later, I’m gonna haunt your ass.”

Phasma just laughs.

“Using all of their movement this turn, the guards will follow Kylo-Gwen towards the stairs,” Poe says. “What do you do when you get there and see that they’re gone?”

“Well, Gwenna has no idea that they’re just invisible, right?” Phasma asks.

“Make an intelligence check,” Poe replies.

“Hmm… I got a seven,” Phasma says.

“Yeah she has no clue,” Poe confirms, “for all she knows the vanishing stairs are just a defense mechanism.”

Phasma shrugs. “Okay, so how high off the ground is the second story?”

Poe blinks at her.

“Um… it’s like sixty feet,” he says.

“And how far to the nearest chandelier? And does it look like it could hold my weight?”

The DM’s eyes get wide as he realizes what Phasma is thinking.

“From the top of the stairs it’s about twenty feet away,” he says. “And you’re not a structural engineer, but you’ve climbed on a lot of chandeliers, so I’ll go ahead and say that you’re fairly certain it will.”

“Cool, I’m gonna use my grappling hook and Tarzan my way out of here,” Phasma says.

“Roll me… fuck I don’t know. Roll a Dexterity-Athletics check, I _guess_ ,” Poe says, shaking his head.

Ben cranes his head to watch Phasma roll her dice.

“Eighteen!” She cries, gleefully, and he smiles despite himself.

“Jesus Christ,” Poe mutters. “Alright, well, you leap off the railing on the upper floor and swing across the room like a giant, horned Spiderman from the nearest chandelier.”

Poe rolls a couple of dice and makes a pained noise.

“One of the guards leaps off the railing after you, trying to catch you and just falls to his death. I’m not even rolling for the damage because he got a nat one. Another lands on the invisible stairs and begins sliding down them, which hurts, but isn’t fatal. The last two guards see him sliding, so they realize that the stairs are still there, just invisible. So they…”

He pauses and rolls more dice, the curses.

“Well one of them trips on the first stair and goes tumbling down as well and the other clings to the invisible railing and begins slowly working his way downstairs, too terrified by the fate of his companions to do anything else. Phasma, what the fuck are you doing?”

Phasma laughs, steepling her fingers in front of her face.

“Is there any cover down below?” she asks.

Rubbing his jaw, Poe considers the map. “Yeah, you could land behind the game tables, though you’re still about… thirty feet up, so you’re gonna take some damage if you fall.”

“Eh, that’s no big deal,” Phasma says. “I want to drop down and cast invisibility on myself.”

“I mean, I can’t _stop_ you from doing that,” Poe says, which makes Ben snort because he definitely could, but for all of his griping, it’s clear that Poe is enjoying this caper just as much as everyone else is. “Gwenna, you take thirteen points of falling damage, but you’re on the ground and invisible. The guards have a general idea of where you landed, but those that are physically able to do anything about you no longer have a direct line of sight on you.”

“Alright, well Gwenna is going to head towards the servant’s exit, and I think I’m good for now,” she says.

“Oh my god,” Rey says, “what is this _game_?”

“Dungeons & Dragons,” Ben says, very seriously.

Rey laughs and elbows him in the arm.

His stomach flips and Ben’s face feels strange and he’s not sure what it’s doing for a second, until his brain finally catches up and he realizes that he’s smiling back at her.

* * *

The city bells are tolling four in the morning by the time the entire party finally makes it back to the warehouse. Mist hangs in the air and the further they get from the lantern-lit garden district, the darker and dirtier the streets grow.

The entire party is worse for wear, except for Gwenna who has dropped her disguise looks unruffled as ever, without so much as a single hair out of place.

“Time to hold up your end of the bargain,” Kylo says, pulling the ring of seals out of his pockets and shaking them in Bond’s face as Kira and Gwenna begin setting to work freeing the bards from their confinement.

“What about the contract?” Zerah asks, pulling the gag out of her mouth and shouldering Gwenna away from her as soon as the manacles have come off of her wrists.

“The good news is that even if we hadn’t managed to pick that up as well, it wouldn’t matter,” Dayo tells them, crossing his arms, “Fett’s dead as a doornail.”

Slip’s pale eyebrows shoot up her blue-gray skinned face. “You actually _killed_ him?”

“It seemed like the simplest course of action,” Dom says with a sniff.

“Only because _you_ messed everything up in the first place,” Kira says, testily, as she unties the ropes binding the Troupe together.

“Adedayo, you said that’s the good news,” Bond interjects, “what's the bad news?”

“Along with committing three murders, we may have set fire to part of the high roller suite, stollen almost a hundred platinum pieces, injured a bunch of guards, and uh… released some ‘irreplaceable racing beetles’,” Lo’an says in a slightly abashed tone, ticking crimes off on her fingers.

“Which means that every guard in the city is on high alert for anyone who was involved with this incident… and since you came here with Fett in the first place, you’re probably on their wanted list too,” Dayo says. “It took us almost four hours to get across the city because the patrols are so thick.”

Nines curses in Dwarvish.

“You can’t even clean up your own mess without leaving behind another, can you?” Zerah snaps, glaring daggers at Dayo.

“Zerah,” Bond says, shooting the elven woman a quelling glance.

Dayo's face shutters and Kylo can see his hands curling into fists. Abruptly he feels irritated on his party member’s behalf. A surge of strange and unexpected empathy that he’s never experienced before. His lips flatten into a displeased line.

“Enough,” Kylo says, curtly, stepping between Dayo and his former comrades. “We’ve fulfilled our end of the bargain. Here are your seals, here is your contract. You never stipulated how any of these ends were to be achieved and that’s _your_ problem now. Give us the map to Takodana and we can all put this city behind us.”

Bond’s eyes snap up to meet Kylo’s from beneath his bland eyebrows, and there’s a beat where he thinks that the man is about to push the issue further, but after a long pause, the bard seems to come to some sort of inner resolution. His shoulders relax and he nods firmly.

“Give me twenty minutes,” Bond says, slipping his newly freed hand into the leather pouch on his belt, withdrawing a leather folio, similar to the one that Kylo had lifted from Fett’s corpse, before walking over to find an upturned crate to use as a makeshift table.

It doesn’t take long for Bond to create a functional map of Midrim, though the tense silence that falls over the warehouse while he works is oppressive.

Even Kylo can tell from the way that Dayo and the Troupe members keep shooting glances at each other that there is a lot more that they would all like to say to each other, but he knows all too well how difficult it can be to find the right words to express the sort of anger and betrayal that they are all currently experiencing.

 _Wounds like that can only be left by people who you actually cared about_ , he thinks, _which is why I need to put my damn guard back up. Caring will only get you killed._

Kylo turns away so that he no longer has to watch the miserable tableau unfolding in the warehouse and busies himself changing back into his armor. As he straps the bladeless sword hilt onto his belt once more, the knot of anxious tension that had been squeezing his lungs and heart to the point of pain all evening loosens, replaced with an alien sensation of smug, possessive satisfaction.

 _Did you miss me,_ whispers the voice in the back of his head.

He doesn’t know how to answer.

He’s half-afraid that the answer is yes.

They part ways with the Troupe outside of the warehouse doors, exchanging bardic seals and the now-defunct contract for a finely drawn map of Midrim, with the city of Takodana marked in red ink. The lifeless body of TK, still wrapped in a tarp is slung over one of Zerah’s shoulders and she is pointedly not looking in Dayo’s direction.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” Dayo says, looking down at the ground. “I wish things had gone differently. And I hope that this marks the end of our debt to one another. Next time we meet, I hope it’s under clear skies.”

“I- _we_ would like that,” Bond replies with a sigh. “All bad blood aside, your absence left behind a hole we never could fill.”

The hafling looks up, then bites his lip and strides forwards, hand extended.

“May your song carry,” Dayo says.

Bond’s eyes widen and a small smile pulls at one corner of his lips.

“May your goblet never run dry,” he replies, taking Dayo’s hand in his own and shaking it firmly.

“And may your enemies flee before you like sailors before a storm,” they finish in unison.

Bond releases Dayo’s hand and steps back towards the rest of the Troupe of Storm and Song, who have been watching the exchange with unreadable expressions. As one, the group pulls their hoods up and turn away, darting off to vanish in the shadows of a nearby alley, like four grey ghosts in the night.

Dayo stares down at his extended hand for a beat before exhaling deeply and letting the hand drop back to his side. Squaring his shoulders, he turns to Lo’an.

“Thank you for insisting we do this,” he says, earnestly. “I don’t think I understood until I was face to face with them again exactly how much this had been weighing on me.”

The druid shrugs.

“It was my debt too,” she says.

They stare at each other, communicating something wordless, the way only people who are irritatingly close can, before Dom ruins the moment.

“Well, if everyone’s done having a character development moment, can we please leave this city before we all get arrested?” he asks.

Everyone turns to glare at him.

“What? Feelings are for people who _aren’t_ wanted by the city guard,” Dom fires back just as the shouting of guards and the distinct clack of their hobnailed boots against the cobblestones begins to echo through the Warehouse District.

* * *

“After you subdue the guards and stash them in a nearby outhouse, you’re able to slip through the drainage tunnel they were guarding, bypassing the security checkpoint at the nearest gate, and ending up on the bank of the river that you know – thanks to Bond’s map – runs alongside the northwestern side of the city,” Poe says. “How do you want to proceed?”

“We need to get farther away from the city and find somewhere to take a damn nap,” Finn says.

“Yeah, I have like one first level spell left and that’s it,” Hux says, flipping through his spell list with a look of irritation.

“And whose fault is that?” Ben mutters under his breath.

Hux pretends not to hear him, but the way his lips tighten into a prissy mou of displeasure lets Ben know that his jab hit home.

“We should probably start heading towards Takodana too, right?” Rey says, rising out of her seat to look at the large, beautifully crafted, parchment map that Poe has conveniently placed on the table for them.

Without much thought, Ben reaches out, tugging the map closer to their side of the table so that she can see it would needing to stand.

“Thanks,” she says with a little smile, sitting back down.

“No problem,” he replies, leaning over to examine the map as well. The action brings them into distressingly close proximity and he swallows around the overpowering wildflower scent that fills his lungs.

Which is when he realizes that the table has fallen completely silent.

Ben hazards a glance up, only to find that everyone else is staring at him and Rey _again_ , with naked fascination. He glares at them and clears his throat.

“Anyone _else_ have any bright ideas they’d like to contribute or is this game a spectator sport now?” he snaps, wishing he could articulate how uncomfortable it is to be stared at without saying something else that would definitely get him in trouble.

“Heading for Takodana, not getting arrested again, having a nice long talk about _what the fuck happened back there_ , and taking a long rest all sound like good ideas to me!” Rose says, brightly.

“Great,” Ben mutters, “let’s do that then.”

“Should we head north along the river?” Rey asks, tracing her finger along the blue line on the map. “It leads right to that big lake south of Takodana and since it’s not a road it should be easier for us to stay hidden if we go that way. We _are_ fugitives, after all.”

Phasma leans forwards to glance at the map around Ben’s bulk.

“I think we should actually take the eastern road to the port on the southern side of the lake instead. I’d rather sail across it than walk around. It’ll be a shorter trip,” she says.

“But won’t that bring us closer to the part of Midrim under Imperial control?” Finn asks, frowning.

“I think it’s worth the risk,” Rose says tapping a finger against her lips. “Besides if we go this way, we might get lucky and find someone we can bum transportation off of again. If we follow the river we’re going to be on foot the whole time.”

Rey pushes the map back towards the center of the table.

“Whatever we do I think we should do it fast,” she says. “We’re too close to the city for comfort right now.”

“Speaking of which,” Poe cuts in, “who’s paying attention to their surroundings?”

“Kira for sure,” Rey says.

“And also Dom,” says Hux.

“Great,” Poe nods. “You two; make perception checks.”

Ben watches Rey roll one of her sparkly yellow dice and winces sympathetically as it comes to a halt on a five.

“Ugh. Not great. I got a thirteen,” she grumbles, her shoulders slumping with disappointment.

“And I got an eight,” Hux says.

Poe smiles beatifically.

“You’re all alone in this field and no one is watching you,” he says.

The table groans in unison.

“Well now we _need_ to make a decision before Poe kills us for standing still too long. River or road?” Finn asks.

* * *

After what Kylo feels is an excessive amount of debating and arguing the pros and cons of their travel options, they decide to take the road. After all, it _is_ a _much_ shorter trip.

He is distinctly uneasy at the idea of heading towards Empire territory but he doesn’t have any good arguments as to _why_ it’s such a very bad idea for him, _personally,_ to go there that won’t reveal the secret of his former identity, that he has worked so very hard to protect.

All he can say is “I have a bad feeling about this” but his _feeling_ does little to sway the minds of his fellow travelers.

They skirt wide around Mos Eisley’s western gate and keep to the thick woods that bracket the city’s northern edge, trudging through the ungroomed underbrush for a few hours. There’s a close call with a pack of direwolves – all of whom are inexplicably wearing bits of armor and clothing, like the bugbear the party had fought back in the desert outpost – but they make it out mostly unscathed.

As the party resumes their march, Kira falls back to walk at Kylo’s side, bringing up the rear of the party.

“Can I ask you something?” She asks.

“You already did but go ahead,” he replies, turning his head to look at her.

Kira’s brow is furrowed and she’s holding the bright blue scarf she’d liberated from the corpse of a fallen direwolf earlier in her hands.

“I… I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but I overheard you talking to Lo yesterday. About you having been a paladin,” she says, eyes flicking up to meet his as she bites her lip.

Kylo grits his teeth and looks away.

“That was a private conversation,” he says, sharply.

He can see her wince out of the corner of his eye and feels _bad_ about it, even though he has no reason to. She’s the one sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong after all.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t _not_ hear it, though,” Kira says, sounding legitimately apologetic. “You guys weren’t exactly being quiet.”

He grunts, a sound that is one part irritation and one part acknowledgement of her point.

“Listen, I know you don’t want to talk to _me_ about this–” Kira begins.

“So let’s not talk about it,” Kylo interjects, cutting her off.

She sighs.

“Fine, I was just… fine. We don’t need to talk about this. But… we’re the only two people here who knows what it means to serve a god. And what it means to stop,” she says and unbidden, Kylo finds his gaze drawn to hers once more.

There’s no judgment in her eyes; no reprimand or reproach. Just a sort of tentative hope mixed with wariness.

“What about it?” He asks after a beat of silence filled only with the rustle of leaves the the faint chatter of the party’s voices further down the trail.

Kira looks down and Kylo abruptly realizes that they’ve stopped walking.

“I… listen. I can sense the conflict in you. You were a paladin and a broken oath is a wound that bleeds until you staunch it by either re-devoting yourself or finding a new power to serve. I can feel you bleeding, for lack of a better word. I know there’s stuff going on that you’re not talking about. And if you need someone to talk to, I guess I’m offering to listen,” she trails off, staring down at her boots.

“Why?” he asks, and the question tears its way out of his throat which suddenly feels tight like he’s fighting off tears.

Kira looks up again and the moment when their eyes meet sends a strange charge of electric energy rolling through his body from the tips of his horns to the soles of his feet.

“Because right now, even when you’re with us, I think you still feel like you’re all alone,” she says, “and I know a lot about being alone.”

Kylo’s jaw works and he swallows a couple times, but he’s unable to figure out what to say in response.

A minute ago he would have rather gouged his own eyes out than discuss his broken faith with this strange interloper and yet… As they stand there, he feels like his heart is suddenly aching, too full and too empty all at once and he wants nothing more than to unburden himself to Kira.

A bird cries somewhere overhead, reality re-asserting itself, and the moment vanishes like a puff of smoke.

Kylo turns away and clears his throat.

“Thanks for the offer, but I told you; I have no interest in talking about the gods _or_ my relationship with them. Especially not with someone who thinks they can do no wrong,” he says with perhaps more venom than is necessary. “We’ve fallen too far behind, let’s go.”

Then he takes off down the trail once more. Behind him, he hears Kira sigh and follow after a moment later.

Kylo walks briskly, catching up to the rest of the party with little trouble and immediately involves himself in a pointless argument with Dom about loot distribution. The irritation grounds him a little, though it takes a few more hours before he feels normal again and no matter how hard he tries, he cannot shake Kira’s words from his head.

Shortly after both suns have reached their zenith, the party comes over the top of a hill, catching their first glimpse of the eastern road through gaps in the foliage.

“We should stop here for a while,” Lo’an says. “We need to rest and there will be less people on the road once night falls, anyway. We’ll have to keep an eye out for bandits but I think it’s a fair trade for the cover of darkness.”

“I think I fractured a rib in the fight with the guards earlier,” Kylo says, prodding lightly at the sore spot on his side that has been throbbing with more and more intensity as they walked. “I’m gonna knock out for a while so I can fix it. I’ll take third watch. Figure out the rest of the watch order amongst yourselves.”

He selects the large red maple tree on the east side of the clearing and stalks over to drop down in the vee of its roots. The bark is cool and smooth at his back and as soon as his head tilts back against it, the exhaustion he’s been holding at bay since the casino all but swamps him.

The party bed down without a fire. It’s more than light enough, even beneath the cover of the trees for them to see by and while the warmth would have been nice, the smoke would have attracted unnecessary attention. Kylo, who runs hot anyway, doesn’t notice its absence, but as he leans back against his tree, he can hear Dom griping to Dayo about the chill.

There’s a rustle of leaves next to him and Kylo cracks open his left eye to discern the source of the disturbance.

He’s surprised to discover that Kira has dropped down next to him, leaning against his tree, a few inches away. He’d thought that she would stay far away from him after the abrupt way he’d ended their conversation earlier.

She catches him looking and shrugs.

“The other trees around here have scratchy bark. I don’t want to be picking splinters out of my shoulders for the next week,” she says, by way of explanation, before pulling the hood of her cloak up over her head, obscuring her face from his gaze.

“Alright,” Kylo says, “just be quiet. If you keep me awake, I’ll make you go sit with everyone else.”

“Says the guy who’s still talking,” Kira shoots back, quietly, and while he can’t see her face any longer, Kylo gets the feeling that the cleric is teasing him.

Despite his talk of distrusting her, he’s surprised by how little he actually minds having the cleric this close to him while he’s in such a vulnerable position.

Kylo sighs and forces himself to focus on modulating his breathing, dropping into the familiar state of deep, healing sleep that will set the magic in his blood to work repairing all of his various injuries.

His dreams come like dark tendrils from the deep, gleefully reaching out and wrapping around his mind, dragging him into the inky black of unconsciousness.

When next he wakes, it’s to gathering darkness and the sound of a high, frightened scream somewhere just beyond the edge of the clearing.

As the last vestiges of sleep vanish, he leaps to his feet.

The wound in his side throbs, and Kylo realizes with displeasure that he hasn’t slept long enough to either heal up or to regain his spent magical energy.

On the ground before him, he can see the slumbering forms of his traveling companions. Dom is laying with his cat draped over his eyes like a sleep mask, Gwenna is leaning up against a tree across the way with Lo’an resting comfortably in her lap, and Dayo is slumped over his lute, looking for all the world like he’d simply drifted off in the process of tuning the instrument.

Sudden cold fear lances through his stomach and Kylo whirls to look at the place where Kira had previously been resting. The half-elf is nowhere to be seen and the disturbed leaves below the maple tree are the only sign that she had been there at all.

There’s another scream, this time accompanied by a flash of golden light and the sound of blades clashing. Now that he’s paying attention, he can identify Kira’s voice, which at least explains her absence. The party remains asleep, undisturbed by the increasingly loud commotion. He’s been around enough sleep spells in his day to know that this is not a natural slumber and there’s no point in attempting to rouse them.

Kylo curses under his breath, drawing Silencer from its sheath and taking off in the direction of the fighting as quietly as he can manage. The fear from earlier latches on to his heart. He’s in no shape to be fighting anyone and though she’d been quiet about it, Kira had taken her own fair share of hits and had been dragging her feet as they walked by the end of their hike.

It’s the two of them alone, facing down an enemy cunning enough to wait until they were all at their weakest before striking.

Another blast of light – sickly green this time – fills the forest, blasting the leaves off of nearby bushes, just as Kylo steps into view of Kira and her assailant.

Or rather, assailants.

The cleric is bloody and panting, crouched in a defensive stance as she fends off the blows of a tall, sturdily built paladin in dark plate armor studded with glowing red crystal, and bolts of witchfire emanating from the hands of a smaller, lithe warlock in a black robe with a hunk of the same luminous rock hanging around her neck.

The fear closes in a vice grip around Kylo’s heart, talons sinking deep into tender flesh. He knows from the second he lays eyes on them – and maybe, if he’s being honest, he knew from the moment he awoke to find the party under attack – who it is that they’re facing.

He’d know the cruel curve of the snarling jaws on Rosh Ren’s obsidian wolf helmet anywhere.

He’d recognize the faint stench of acid burn that accompanies Bazine Ren’s magic even in the foulest dungeon.

And more importantly, as the momentum of his sneaking run carries him out from beneath the cover of the woods and into the line of sight of his former fellow Knights of Ren, Kylo recognizes that he’s fallen into their favorite trap.

For Bazine and Rosh never travel alone.

Even though he knows that there’s no point, that he’s already stuck in the spider’s web, Kylo hefts his sword and takes another step towards Kira, hoping against hope that he has enough strength to do _anything_ to help her.

“So nice of you to finally join us, Boss,” comes Bazine’s voice, a sibilant, metallic hiss through the mouth slit of the onyx serpentine helmet, peeking out from beneath her hood. “We’ve missed you _ever_ so much.”

“It’s been far too long. We were just about to come to you, but you’ve saved us the trouble of the walk,” Rosh adds.

There’s just enough time for Kira to lock eyes with Kylo across the clearing, and the expression on her face is pure disbelief and betrayal. Then the hilt of Rosh’s sword is swinging into the gap in her defenses created by her momentary lapse in concentration. It connects solidly with her temple and the cleric’s eyes roll back in her head as she crumples.

Kylo takes another step towards them. That is when the world shakes with the impact as something crashing to the ground from the trees below.

At his back, Vil Ren lets out a roar that makes his ears ring, but Kylo doesn’t even have time to turn around before the third member of the deadly team lands a blow on the back of his own skull that nearly lifts him off the ground with the force.

Lightning bursts behind his eyes and then he’s crashing face-first into the forest floor, as terror and despair claw their way out of his throat in a desperate scream.

The impact of a massive boot directly to his jaw drops a curtain of darkness over his eyes and Kylo Ren knows no more.

* * *

“No fucking way!” Finn is screaming as he clutches his head.

“You traitorous _fuck!_ ” Phasma cries as she punches Ben repeatedly in the shoulder.

“Stop it,” he grumbles as he leans away from her attack. Unfortunately, this has the effect of making him brush up against Rey and _that_ has the effect of making him jerk back in the opposite direction once more – putting him right in range of Phasma’s fists.

“I don’t know why you’re all acting like this is such a huge deal,” Hux says smugly. “ _I_ suspected all along that Kylo was a Knight of R-”

“Shut _up_ , Hux,” says everyone at the table in perfect unison.

Thankfully, Hux’s general assholery has the benefit of redirecting Phasma’s ire and it’s his turn to dodge out of the reach of Phasmas ‘love taps’.

“Did your old co-workers just kill us both?” Rey asks, crossing her arms and frowning up at Ben. “I just started playing! I don’t want to have to make a new character already!”

He clears his throat and scratches awkwardly at the back of his neck.

“Well, we’re not dead, just unconscious,” he says awkwardly, “you just dropped below zero hit points, but you’re not far enough into the negatives to be dead yet so-”

“Okay, but these are still people you used to be friends with, right?” she interrupts, gesturing at the three black minifigs on the table before them.

Ben winces.

“Ah, well. Technically we weren’t friends so much as minions of the same evil overlord –”

Rey makes a face at him.

“Did you yell at them with no reason too?” she asks and irritation sparks in his chest at the suggestion that despite their agreement to start over, she still felt it necessary to reprimand him for the behavior he’d already apologized for.

But just as Ben is preparing to snap back, he realizes that her tone, while definitely aggrieved, had also held a note of teasing.

“I mean, technically they were his subordinates, but probably,” he says, lips quirking into a small grin, “I feel like Kylo Ren was a _terrible_ boss.”

“I can’t believe you were part of Snoke’s personal guard and kept us in the dark about it this whole time!” Rose says, throwing her hands in the air. “I’m so mad.”

Ben sobers, looking over at Poe with a frown.

“Wait, you dicks are all snoozing away in blissful ignorance,” Ben says. “Kira is the only one who actually knows _any_ of this. DM, tell them to quit metagaming.”

Poe, who has been observing the chaos, grins broadly.

“Ben’s right! None of you have any idea what has just happened,” Poe says, shrugging at the group. “Which means that you’re all gonna be in the dark for at least another week, because this is where we’re stopping for tonight.”

The wailing that follows Poe’s proclamation is more forceful than usual, but as always, the DM is unmoved by their protests.

“Get out of my house before I decide to make you all wait to level up until the end of next session,” he threatens Rose, who is shaking his arm and begging him to keep going for ‘ _just_ another hour’.

“You wouldn’t _dare_ ,” she says, recoiling in horror.

Poe laughs, “You’re right. Everyone be sure to level up your characters before next week; I want you all ready to suffer through- I mean survive what I have planned for you!”

Ben takes his time about putting his things away, watching the rest of the group bid their farewells and slowly trickle out of the house. He tries to act natural about it, but he’s forced to spend longer than is probably reasonable rearranging his papers in order to ensure that he and Rey finish packing up at the same time.

“We’re still on for boxing on Thursday, right?” Poe asks, catching Ben before he can follow Rey out the door of the game room.

“Yeah, I’ll text you. Night, Poe,” he says, quickly hurrying after Rey who is now at the foyer, oblivious to the quizzical expression on Poe’s face as he stares after the pair.

Ben catches up to Rey on the curb outside, just as she’s unlocking her beat up white Honda Civic.

Rey gives him a nod, swinging her backpack off of her shoulder into the car, then ducking down to follow after it.

“Hey, wait. Just a second. This was... that is- tonight was okay. It was better,” Ben says, then realizing that he has not properly communicated what he intended at all, he adds, “Right?”

Rey straightens up, resting her hands on the driver’s side door and roof of her car.

“Yeah,” she says, nodding, “it was actually a lot of fun. Well, right up to the end when we almost got killed, anyway.”

Ben lets out a breath so deep that it seems to come from all the way down in his knees, tension uncoiling from his muscles.

He nods back, feeling like maybe there is hope after all that he won’t have to completely abandon this place of solace, that maybe, just _maybe_ , for once he’s managed to fix a mistake.

It… well. It feels good.

The tiniest beginning of a smile begins to curl the edges of his lips.

“I’m… sorry my backstory knocked you out,” he says.

It takes a second for Rey to register that he’s actually _joking_ with _her_ , but he watches the knowledge dawn on her face along with a wide, brilliant grin that all but knocks the wind out of him as effectively as a physical blow.

He stands there on the sidewalk, clutching his motorcycle helmet to his chest, dumbstruck.

“Oh, don’t worry; as soon as Kira’s awake she’s gonna get you back for it! Get ready because she’s coming for you,” Rey tells him with a laugh like a glass bell. Then she yawns. “Oof, it’s late. I’ll see you next time. Goodnight, Ben.”

Then with a cheery wave, she climbs into her car.

“Goodnight, Rey,” he says, almost a full minute later, to the afterimage of her long-vanished tail lights.

Rey’s smile replays on a loop each time he blinks.

His stomach seems to have been filled with butterflies.

 _Get a hold of yourself, asshole,_ Ben admonishes himself, jamming his helmet onto his head with more force than is necessary. _You_ just _patched shit up with her. Don’t go making things more complicated._

In his mind’s eye, Rey laughs and his heart skips a beat.

 _Fuck_ , he thinks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: will in-game events disrupt the newfound truce between Rey and Ben?
> 
> Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated and encourage me to write faster!
> 
> If you’d like to support my work (or just want to yell at me about this story) you can do so on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/commandercait).


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